Homo Deus II

Since there is no script, and since humans fulfil no role in any great drama, terrible things might befall us and no power will come to save us, or give meaning to our suffering. There won't be a happy ending, or a bad ending, or any ending at all. Things just happen, one after the other. The modern world does not believe in purpose, only in cause. If modernity has a motto, it is 'shit happens'. 

on the other hand, if shit just happens, without any binding script or purpose, then humans too are not limited to any pre-determined role. We can do anything we want - provided we can find a way. We are constrained by nothing except our own ignorance. Plagues and droughts have no cosmic meaning - but we can eradicate them. Wars are not a necessary evil on the way to a better future - but we can make peace. No paradise awaits us after death - but we can create paradise here on earth,  and live in it for ever, if we just manage to overcome some technical difficulties. 

Homo Deus, pp. 200-201, Yuval Noah Harari.  

Homo Deus

We want to believe that our lives have some objective meaning, and that our sacrifices matter to something beyond the stories in our head. Yet in truth the lives o most people have meaning only within the network of stories they tell one another. 

Homo Deus, p. 145, Yuval Noah Harari. 

RE: Bullet Journal II

Last year, I showed a snippet of my bullet journal that was the Book Club. I want to do that again.

Book Club 2018 includes the following information: name of the book, author, date completed reading, notes on the book.

1. The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck/ Mark Manson/ 2-2-18/ An international bestseller with over one million sold, the cover advertises. The book is kind of remarkable, but it is also shockingly simple. It is another bit of Buddhist philosophy rewritten and resold. I enjoyed it though. I loved it. I think the lessons are worthwhile to ponder. I think they're lessons I need to apply to my own life. They are questions I need to ask myself honestly. I'm still coming to terms with what I read. I know this is a book I will need to reread. 
2. You Are A Badass/ Jen Sincero/ 5-17-18/ This has been on my list for a while. I think at one point I had borrowed it from the library, but I knew I had to get a copy for myself and I'm so glad that I did. Like the only other book I've finished this year, it has some heavy stuff. It's a lot to digest and I'll need to read it again. It's beautiful though. Written to be conversational, it's a big wake up call. I think the biggest takeaway is to wholeheartedly believe that everything I want in life is not only possible but already exists. I may not know how to get there yet, but it exists and I will end up there. I just have to believe and love the Universe and myself enough to allow myself to get there. That's powerful. 
3. Hey Whipple, Squeeze This/ Luke Sullivan & Edward Boches/ 5-19-18/ Parts of this are so dry and parts of it are really funny. It's supplemental reading but it's really helpful. It highlights the handful of top ads that are funny and really make you think. It goes through all of the different formats. It's the kind of book that will sit on the bookshelf for constant inspiration. 
4. The Goldfinch/ Donna Tartt/ 5-28-18/ What else is there to say but to borrow a word from the end of the book - sublime? Spencer recommended it. It's a coming-of-age story but so much more than that. It's a lot to sink in. 
5. Ogilvy on Advertising/ David Ogilvy/ 7-16-18/ A crucial book that everyone in advertising has read and now I have too. The book covers every aspect of advertising. I'm sure it's something I will revisit many, many times. I think the stress is on research, good work that sells and a passion for it. He's a passionate man who loves advertising, loves his work. It really shows, even in the way he writes. It's like hearing one of the greats speak to you over coffee or whiskey in the most intimate way. 
6. After Dark/ Haruki Murakami/ 7-18-18/ I've read this before. It's the first Murakami I've ever read back in high school. The mood strikes me because I've been feeling this way a lot. Not wanting to sleep. Not being able to sleep. Wanting to wander through the night. Really a fear of what I have to encounter and deal with. I haven't been dealing with it well. It was still a good read. I see why I've read so many more since. Murakami is a feeling. 
7. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind/ Yuval Noah Harari/ 9-25-18/ It's taken almost two months to finish this book, but it is truly something special. It forces a different way of understanding our existence as humans and our impact on the world. It forces the question of why; the why behind the how, the why of the past, present and future. It is a brilliant thing to read. 
8. Norwegian Wood/ Haruki Murakami/ 11-11-18/ The ending brought tears to my eyes. It was wonderful.
9. The Great Gatsby/ F. Scott Fitzgerald/ 12-19-18/ I haven't finished the short stories but I finished Gatsby. I didn't realize such glamour could be so sad. It's beautifully written, even if I do miss some of the intricacies of his writing.
10. The Strange Library/ Haruki Murakami/ 12-19-18/ I didn't know this book existed, but I found it by chance at the library. It's a short story with interesting illustrations. Something that feels mysterious and haunted.
11. Hard-Boiled Wonderland & The End of the World/ Haruki Murakami/ 12-30-18/ My last book of the year - very different from the Murakami I've experienced. More mystical. Still very hollow and empty. Still digesting. 

From Sapiens II

It's taken about two months to finally finish this book. I think it's so interesting and important to read. There's a lot to take in and a lot more to explain. What I loved in particular was the afterword at the end. Here it is.

From Yuval Noah Harari:

Seventy thousand years ago, Homo sapiens was still an insignificant animal minding its own business in a corner of Africa. In the following millennia it transformed itself into the master of the entire planet and the terror of the ecosystem. Today it stands on the verge of becoming a god, poised to acquire not only eternal youth, but also the divine abilities of creation and destruction.

Unfortunately, the sapiens regime on earth has so far produced little that we can be proud of. We have mastered our surroundings, increased good production, built cities, established empires and created far-flung trade networks. But did we decrease the amount of suffering in the world? Time and again, massive increases in human power did not necessarily improve the well-being of the individual sapiens, and usually caused immense misery to other animals.

In the last few decades we have at least made some real progress as far as the human condition is concerned, with the reduction of famine, plague and war. Yet the situation of other animals is deteriorating more rapidly than ever before, and the improvement in the lot of humanity is too recent and fragile to be certain of.

Moreover, despite the astonishing things that humans are capable of doing, we remain unsure of our goals and we seem to be as discontented as ever. We have advanced from canoes to galleys to steamships to space shuttles - but nobody knows where we're going. We are more powerful than ever before, but have very little idea what to do with all that power. Worse still, humans seem to be more irresponsible than ever. Self-made gods with only the laws of physics to keep us company, we are accountable to no one. We are consequently wreaking havoc on our fellow animals and on the surrounding ecosystem, seeking little more than our own comfort and amusement, yet never finding satisfaction.

Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don't know what they want?

From Sapiens

I'm currently between two books. This one fell into my lap. A regular at work kindly lent me his copy when I asked him if he was enjoying it. The Observer calls it "A rare book... Thrilling and breathtaking." I'm only 30 pages or so in, but I completely agree.

I am reading Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari.

The book itself is a brilliant take on who we are as human beings, as homo sapiens. Why are we the way we are? How did we get to where we are? Who we are? This following quote is the explanation of language and fiction in shaping us. It especially speaks to me both as a writer and as a storyteller.

"Telling effective stories is not easy. The difficulty lies not in telling the story, but in convincing everyone else to believe it. Much of history revolves around this question: how does one convince millions of people to believe particular stories about gods, or nations, or limited liability companies? Yet when it succeeds, it gives Sapiens immense power, because it enables millions of strangers to cooperate and work towards common goals. Just try to imagine how difficult it would have been to create states, or churches, or legal systems if we could speak only about things that really exist, such as rivers, trees and lions" (p. 35).

The Book List of May

I have been so bad at keeping up with my reading. In the year of 2018 so far, I have finished one book. So in mid-May with no job opportunity in sight, I decided to make it a goal to read.

Here is the list:

• You Are A Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero
• Hey Whipple, Squeeze This: The Classic Guide to Creating Great Ads by Luke Sullivan and Edward Boches
• How to Be an Artist Without Losing Your Mind, Your Shirt, or Your Creative Compass: A Practical Guide by JoAnneh Nagler
• The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

By the end of the month, I am happy to report that I've been quite successful. 

I have finished You Are A Badass and Hey Whipple. Both books I started while still in the school year, but I had trouble finding the motivation to read. I found the chance to sleep on the streetcar more enticing. There was also so much of me that was unhappy and unmotivated (more on that in a separate blog - maybe). 

1. You Are A Badass can be a powerful book, as all self-help books can be. It provides philosophical and practical ways to change our thinking about our lives; past, present and future. Whether you listen or not, is always up to the reader. I think the most important and hopefully, useful piece of her book is the suggestion that everything I want, everything I need, already exists in the Universe. I am already in that great, happy, most fulfilling and beautiful place in the world. I just haven't figured out how to get there yet. But if I believe in the beauty the Universe can provide (and does provide), the Universe will show me how to get that. That is some powerful stuff. I'm still working on putting my heart into it.
2. Hey Whipple is suggested reading from school. I really wish this was something I read prior to entering the program, or I didn't read it linearly. It's a great book. Parts of it get a little dry, but all in all, it's a great book. Luke Sullivan knows a lot about advertising. He writes about it in a way that's easy to understand, sometimes funny, and with a genuine passion for this industry. I'm feeling a little trapped and exhausted looking for internships, so this is the book I needed. For anyone looking to enter the ad industry, I recommend reading this book first. You get a canon of some of the best and most thoughtful ads from every single medium out there. I also recommend reading the last two chapters first. 

I've also finished The Goldfinch and enjoyed it a lot. Mentioned in another blog, but The Goldfinch was recommended to me by the guy I'm seeing right now. I told him that A Little Life was one of my favourite novels in the last few years. I loved the coming-of-age story of boys trapped in their youth and in their own personal disasters. While the experiences didn't resonate with me, there was a feeling that did. 

The Goldfinch shares similarities with A Little Life. It's a coming-of-age story told in so much depth and feeling. It's a story of a young boy, an experience I can only read about. It's a story of triumph just as it is a story of heartbreak. It is a story of all his struggles and the precarious way that struggle helps make our decisions. Living, we get thrown into all kinds of messiness that force us to age and to deal with things. I wouldn't say it's an uplifting story, but maybe an important one to read. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would recommend it. 

A Passage from The Goldfinch

Spencer recommended that I read The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt after I shared how much I loved A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. I've only begun to read it so I don't have much to say about this book yet, but here is a passage I feel deeply for.

Why did I obsess over people like this? Was it normal to fixate on strangers in this particular vivid, fevered way? I didn't think so. It was impossible to imagine some random passer-by on the street forming quite such an interest in me. And yet it was the main reason I'd gone in those houses with Tom: I was fascinated by strangers, wanted to know what food they ate and what dishes they ate it from, what movies they watched and what music they listened to, wanted to look under their beds and in their secret drawers and night tables and inside the pockets of their coats. Often I saw interesting-looking people on the street and thought about them restlessly for days, imagining their lives, making up stories about them on the subway or the crosstown bus. Years had passed, and I still hadn't stopped thinking about the dark-haired children in Catholic school uniforms - brother and sister - I'd seen in Grand Central, literally trying to pull their father out the door of a seedy bar by the sleeves of his suit jacket. Nor had I forgotten the frail, gypsyish girl in a wheelchair out in front of the Carlyle Hotel, talking breathlessly in Italian to the fluffy dog in her lap, while a sharp character in sunglasses (father? bodyguard?) stood behind her chair, apparently conducting some sort of business deal on his phone. For years, I'd turned those strangers over in my mind, wondering who they were and what their lives were like, and I knew I would go home and wonder about this girl and her grandfather the same way.

YOU ARE A BADASS

I have been reading a lot of books that fall under the self-help umbrella. Is this ageing? Is this all part of my quarter-life crisis?

I'm currently working on You are a Badass: How to stop doubting your greatness and start living an awesome life by Jen Sincero. It is a New York Times bestseller with over one million copies, the cover page tells me. I am in between loving it and hating it. I hate her writing style but I cannot doubt her attitude. Not yet, at least.

Some quotes I have on my mind:

1. The Big Snooze operates according to your limiting false beliefs. This is the garbage that was stuffed into your subconscious as a kid that doesn't ring true for you, as well as the decisions you've made about yourself that are less-than flattering or empowering. It gets validation from outside sources (I'm doing this to win your love, your opinion of me is more important than my opinion of me), it's reactive (My circumstances control my life, I am a victim), fear-based, and extremely committed to keeping you safely confined within the reality you've created based on these limiting false beliefs (otherwise known as your comfort zone). The Big Snooze lives in the past and in the future and believes you are separate from everything around you (p. 42).
2. Self-perception is a zoo.
   
   We spend our lives drifting between glimpses of our own, infinite glory and the fear that not only are we totally incapable/unworthy/lazy/horrible, but that it's only a matter of time before someone blows the whistle on us. We torture ourselves incessantly, and for what purpose? If we can glimpse the glory (and I know you can), why do we waste our precious time giving any energy to the other options? Wouldn't life be so much more fun, productive, and sexy if we fully embraced our magnificently delightful selves?
   
   Takes the same amount of energy. The same amount of focus. So why do we choose all the drama? (p. 49). 
3. You are perfect. To think anything less is as pointless as a river thinking that it's got too many curves or that it moves too slowly or that its rapids are too rapid. Says who? You're on a journey with no defined beginning, middle or end. There are no wrong twists and turns. There is just being. And your job is to be as you as you can be. This is why you're here. To shy away from who you truly are would leave the world you-less. You are the only you there is and ever will be. I repeat, you are the only you there is and ever will be. Do not deny the world its one and only chance to bask in your brilliance.
   
   We are all perfect in our own, magnificent, fucked-up ways. Laugh at yourself. Love yourself and others. Rejoice in the cosmic ridiculousness (p. 50). 

Bullet Journal II

After the last thing on bullet journals, I really wanted to include some other snippets from my bullet journal(s). I mentioned one of my favourite things from my last bullet journal was my 'Book Club' section. It's books I've read over the year of 2017. (14 in total!)

Book Club includes the following information: name of the book, author, date completed reading, notes on the book.

1. Hot Milk/ Deborah Levy/ 2-8-17/ Shortlisted for the Man Booker 2016, it tells the tale of a mother and daughter who travel to the Spanish coast to discover the mother's mysterious ailments. The daughter is lost; in a lost stage of life. The relationship between mother and daughter is precarious. Entirely codependent, questionably loving. For me, it reflected the lost I feel and the tensions of my own relationship with my mom. Am I fulfilling what I can, what she wants me to?
2. A Manual for Cleaning Women/ Lucia Berlin/ 2-18-17/ One of the 10 best books of the year according to the New York Times Book Review, this is a set of short stories of the author's life and struggles. A little out of order, it almost reads like a journal where she re-examines her own life from an outsiders point of view. She deals with her sister, her alcoholism and the love she finds and loses. It is a little sad and definitely lonely. 
3. Trigger Happy/ Hanna Yost/ 2-28-17/ I have nothing to say because there is too much to say. All that needs to happen though, is just to open the book and read it again.
4. The People in the Trees/ Hanya Yanagihara/ 3-15-17/ This is the author's debut novel, although I still enjoy A Little Life more. Still written to much acclaim, this book is so interesting in the way that it challenges our impressions of right and wrong. What we assume to be appropriate and acceptable behaviour. This is entirely grey space - in our social organization, social and global hierarchy, and sexual behaviour. It is constantly learning not to feel safe and comfortable in one's belief but to constantly challenge. 
5. The Course of Love/ Alain de Botton/ 3-31-17/ This is everything we need to and hope to learn about love and people and being with people in a book. It is not just how to make love stay but also what to do, what we can expect when love is tricky. I saved most of the entire book in a .doc file because it is so touching. 
6. Do Not Say We Have Nothing/ Madeleine Thien/ 5-26-17/ Another book shortlisted for the Man Booker 2016, this follows three generations of two interconnected families (although one more primarily) before, during and after Mao Zedong's peak. What happened before, the shock of some of the reforms, the pain of the reforms. It was heartbreaking to read. The politics is confusing. There are so many different opinions. People love their country, but at the same time, it was a scary, dangerous, limiting time. To be where I am, in the time period that I am, I am so lucky. But also to read and feel the power and heat of political involvement, it is exhilarating.
7. Bad Feminist/ Roxane Gay/ 6-4-17/ She starts with saying that she is a bad feminist. She likes and does the things that we're told we cannot as feminists. As women who respect themselves. Bad Feminist embodies the way that life is not simple and we cannot clearly distinguish the lines on how to live in the most appropriate, empowering and serving way. She includes a lot in her essays; all kinds of topics that would affect feminists. All include so many personal anecdotes, so many pop culture references. It's a lot to think about. I think I want to buy this book to reread.
8. The Vegetarian/ Han Kang/ 6-19-17/ Another one shortlisted for Man Booker 2016, it is a three-part, three-perspective look at a woman who suddenly becomes a vegetarian after she has a recurring dream. Her family breaks apart slowly as a result of her decision. The book is interesting in the way that it describes her motivations towards vegetarianism, and her desire to return to a simple kind of life. On a similar vein, when we look at her family members' motivations for how they choose to live is also interesting - when we live for selfish complacency, for a need of passion, for cowardly complacency. The book asks us to reassess why we choose to act the way we do. 
9. Difficult Women/ Roxane Gay/ 8-13-17/ It is a beautiful collection of short stories that are all over the place. Some of them are light-hearted and fun, some heartbreaking, some just love. I really enjoyed reading the collection. She is a beautiful writer. It's so easy to read and so personable. My favourite stories I typed onto the computer. North Country, Strange Gods, Requiem for a Glass Heart, but there were so many good ones. It both lifted and broke my heart.
10. The Power of Habit/ Charles Duhigg/ 8-16-17/ In a fairly long book with lots of extensive examples and anecdotes, Duhigg explains the science of habits and habit formation that basically control every aspect of our lives. It goes from what habits are, to how they are formed in our personal lives, in business and social movements. Habits are our key to change. 
11. Swing Time/ Zadie Smith/ 9-8-17/ Two young brown girls are friends until moments when they are not. They are kind to each other until they are not. There is so much about this book - the diaspora experience, the single mother, the woman seeking her own path in the world unapologetic about her choices, especially when the men involved feel threatened Not necessarily a likeable character, but I think it's an important story to be told. And heard. It's also on the long list for Man Booker 2017. 
12. Contagious/ Jonah Berger/ 11-5-17/ Originally a book for school but interesting nonetheless. It talks about the pillars or reasons for why and how content becomes viral. It is a short book that outlines fairly obvious points, but still interesting because it is not often that we see these facts laid out so nicely and succinctly. 
13. Double Cup Love/ Eddie Huang/ 11-17-17/ This book took two days to finish. I love Eddie as a voice - to hear and reflect on his upbringing, his culture and viewpoint. It's like hearing him speak. In the book at one point, he says he hates being the voice of a culture, of a race of people. It's foolish to think that his one voice can reflect an entire experience. But I think it's so important to me and maybe to a potential partner (if he isn't Asian) to read and try to understand the complexity of being right here - being a second generation Asian person, my family, and being here in Canada. How that all blends and makes up my beginning. I love Eddie for that. 
14. Hunger/ Roxane Gay/ 11-30-17/ Initially I am hesitant to read this book, afraid of how it force me to reassess my own fat-shaming tendencies, my own fat phobia. That is my own burden and boundary, one that I am so acutely aware of. It talks about her and her journey. A memoir of this aspect of her life - how the weight came, why, what it was for. I'm not sure what it does for or to me. It's insight although I'm not sure how it may change my perspective or opinion. It opens my perspective. It is reading to learn more kindness. 

An excerpt from The Power of Habit

Small wins are exactly what they sound like, and are part of how keystone habits create widespread changes. A huge body of research has shown that small wins have enormous power, an influence disproportionate to the accomplishments of the victories themselves. "Small wins are a steady application of a small advantage," one Cornell professor wrote in 1984. "Once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion that favor another small win." Small wins fuel transformative changes by leveraging tiny advantages into patterns that convince people that bigger achievements are within reach. 

By Charles Duhigg, p. 112

The Course of Love by Alain De Botton

I found a book I am in love with, perfectly describing everything I want out of a relationship, everything I am, and everything I want out of love, every way I want to fall in love.

-- There is, in the early period of love, a measure of sheer relief at being able, at last, to reveal so much of what needed to be kept hidden for the sake of propriety. We can admit to not being as respectable or as sober, as even-keeled or as ‘normal’, as society believes. We can be childish, imaginative, wild, hopeful, cynical, fragile and multiple – all of this our lover can understand and accept us for. 

They are back in the playful spirit of childhood. They bounce on the bed. They swap piggyback rides. They gossip. After attending a party, they inevitably end up finding fault with all the other guests, their loyalty to each other deepened by their ever-increasing disloyalty towards everyone else.

A List of Books I Need to Read

• The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald
• At the Existentialist Cafe, Sarah Bakewell
• The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides
• Nausea, Sartre
• Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche
• Underground, Haruki Murakami
• BE HERE NOW
• Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen

From The People In The Trees

p. 30 - Travellers heading west to California would stop in Peet for an egg salad sandwich and a celery soda from the general store near the station before reembarking. The townspeople thrived from these impermanent relationships, which were in their own way pure: the exchange of money for goods, a pleasant farewell, the assurance that neither party would see the other again. After all, what are most relationships in life but exactly this, though stretched flabbily over years and generations?

From Hanya Yanagihara

'Anthropos' by Deborah Levy

From Hot Milk, shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize

I kept on walking in a daze. I had made something happy. I was shaking and I knew that I had held myself in for too long, in my body, in my skin, the word anthropology from the Greek anthropos meaning 'human', and logia, meaning 'study'. If anthropology is the study of humankind from its beginning millions of years ago to this day, I am not very good at studying myself. I have researched aboriginal culture, Mayan hieroglyphics and the corporate culture of a Japanese car manufacturer, and I have written essays on the internal logic of various other societies, but I haven't a clue about my own logic. Suddenly that was the best thing that ever happened to me. What I felt most was the way she had squeezed the medusa sting on my shoulder.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

pp. 141-142:

He felt in those minutes his body's treason, how sometimes the central, tedious struggle in his life was his unwillingness to accept that he would be betrayed by it again and again, that he could expect nothing from it and yet had to keep maintaining it. So much time, his and Andy's, was spent trying to repair something unfixable, something that should have wound up in charred bits on a slag heap years ago. And for what? His mind, he supposed. But there was - as Andy might have said - something incredibly arrogant about that, as if he was saving a jalopy because he had a sentimental attachment to its sound system.

Excerpt from The Virgin Suicides

I didn't enjoy The Virgin Suicides. It's a beautifully poetic book, but the romance of it was destroyed from having seen the cult classic film multiple times prior to reading. I enjoyed the following passage immensely though, particularly the last line.

From p. 235 of my copy:

Inside, we got to know girls who had never considered taking their own lives. We fed them drinks, danced with them until they became unsteady, and led them out to the screened-in veranda. They lost their high heels on the way, kissed us in the humid darkness, and then slipped away to throw up demurely in the outside bushes. Some of us held their heads as they vomited, then let them rinse their mouths with beer, after which we got back to kissing again. The girls were monstrous in their formal dresses, each built around a wire cage. Pounds of hair were secured atop their heads. Drunk, and kissing us, or passing out in chairs, they were bound for college, husbands, child-rearing, unhappiness only dimly perceived - bound, in other words, for life. 

How To Destabilize A Man

She

• cancels a date at the last minute and apologizes, but won't give him a reason.
• describes her evening in five words or fewer ("It was really fun"), and then goes straight to bed.
• talks politics with her mouth and sex with her eyes.
• is alarmingly honest and answers "terribly" when asked how she's doing.
• actually forgets to wear a bra in summertime.
• makes an office meeting more exciting by discreetly laying her hand on his thigh.
• settles her scores with scores, instead of talking it through.
• grabs hold of a stranger's arm to walk down the stairs in heels.
• manages to pay the bill before he even asks for it.
• randomly exclaims, "This is the most wonderful day of my life!"

From How To Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits, p. 80.

Have you read Murakami?

Haruki Murakami is one of my favourite authors.

The last book I read from him was Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (2014). A quote I have copied into my journal: It hurt to see that she no longer had that burning something she used to have. That what had been remarkable about her had vanished. That the special something would no longer be able to move me the way it used to (p. 211).

 My first Murakami book was After Dark (2007) as per recommended by my grade 12 English teacher.

 I have read Norwegian Wood* (2000), Kafka on the Shore (2005), Sputnik Sweetheart* (2001), 1Q84 (2011), The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1997), and South of the Border, West of the Sun* (2000).

 I had a Murakami quote cut out of old magazines and taped to my bedroom wall when I was at university. From Sputnik Sweetheart, the quote was: Was the Earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?

My next Murakami book will be A Wild Sheep Chase (1989).

 *Denotes my favourite Murakami novels.