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I came across a meme on Instagram where a guy asks a girl who says she likes to read to name her favorite book. She replies, “It’s Murakami by Norwegian Wood.” This silly meme made me want to reread Haruki Murakami’s ‘Norwegian Wood’. I had read it when I was in the 12th grade because it was all the hype back then. I had fallen in love with the plot and the characters and I always talked about it as one of my favorite books. But I remembered none of the details. I couldn’t even find my copy of the book on my shelves which is why I had to buy another one. 

All readers have favorite books. But as we continue on our reading journey and meet new characters and hear new stories, inevitably we forget the ones we have read a long time back. What remains is how they made us feel. When we say a certain book is our favorite, chances are that we are talking about how it made us feel and not what’s in it. This year, I’m planning to reread some of my favorite novels and I decided to start with Norwegian Wood. 

Norwegian Wood is perhaps one of the few books by Haruki Murakami that doesn’t have magical realism woven in the plot. It’s a simple, heartwarming love story, or rather the love triangle of Toru Watanabe, Naoko, and Midori. It starts with Toru Watanabe hearing his favorite Beatles song and being transported back to a time and place 20 years ago when he was a student in Tokyo and was in love with a girl named Naoko. She was the girlfriend of his best friend, Kizuki. He recalls those days when uneasy friendship, casual sex, passion, and desire ruled his life. Then Midori walks into his life and he has to decide whether he wants to hold on to the past or work on his future. 

Toru, Naoko, and Midori are fascinating characters with such strong personality traits that it feels like you know them personally. Some of the side characters, like Toru’s friends and Naoko’s roommate, are also integral to the plot. Despite making short appearances, Murakami ensures that they stay on his reader’s mind as much as the main characters. It’s the hallmark of a great writer. I liked the plot of the book but I loved the characters more. Even when one of the side characters goes on a rant, telling her story to Toru, you are never bored and actually want to know more. 

I can now understand why the book was all the rage when I was in school. It deals with friendship, love, and youngster’s search for identity and so it was bound to resonate with us. The love story angle is also intriguing. I find it fascinating that Murakami was 29 and running a jazz bar in Tokyo when the urge to write came to him. He wrote several books before Norwegian Wood, published in 1987, turned his six figure readership into millions. However, Murakami was uncomfortable with the stardom and moved to Europe and then to the United States for a life of secluded writing. It wasn’t until 1995 that he considered moving back to Japan, but he had his terms and conditions clear: He wouldn’t give interviews or make television appearances. 

I’m fascinated by Murakami’s mind. I wonder how it might feel to have all these stories in one’s head. Norwegian Wood is just one of his masterworks. Others like ‘Kafka on the Shore’, ‘The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle’, ‘Sputnik Sweetheart’  and his short story collections are brilliant too. I must have read seven or eight of his books and each of them have reminded me what good stories can do to you. They blow your mind wide open and urge you to look at things from different perspectives. 

Fiction

Norwegian Wood

Haruki Murakami

Translated into English by Jay Rubin 

Published: 2000 (English translation)

Publisher: Penguin Random House UK

Pages: 389, Paperback

‘Somewhere Beyond the Sea’ is the sequel to ‘The House in the Cerulean Sea’ by TJ Klune. Though you can read Somewhere Beyond the Sea even if you haven’t read The House in the Cerulean Sea and it will still work as a good story, it will be a much more wholesome experience if you read both the parts in the order they were written in. That way, the characters and the plot will grow on you and you will be consumed by the world Klune has created.

The House on the Cerulean Sea is one of my favorite reads of 2022 (that was when I read the book though it was published in 2020). It made me happy and the LGBTIQA+ representation was unlike any I had read till then. Despite being a story about magical creatures, it felt real and relatable. It’s also a queer love story of sorts as the author, a queer himself, has weaved one in beautifully without taking away from the central plot. 

In the book, Linus Baker, a caseworker at the Department in Charge of Magical Youths, is assigned to go to an orphanage on a remote island where there are six magical children. He has to determine whether these children are as dangerous as the ministry thinks they are, especially as one of them is the son of Satan. As Linus gets to know these mysterious children and the person who runs the orphanage, Arthur Parnassus, he starts feeling at home in this strange place. 

The House on the Cerulean Sea is a wonderful story about friendship, love, and how your sense of belongingness is tethered to people and places that make you feel safe and seen. Somewhere Beyond the Sea picks up where the first book left off. It feels like a continuation of the first part and I loved having an extended version of a story I had immensely enjoyed. It’s like being enveloped in a warm hug that you don’t want to get out of. 

In Somewhere Beyond the Sea, we see Arthur being forced to make a public statement about his past and that jeopardizes the orphanage’s and the children’s future. The Department in Charge of Magical Youths sends an investigator to determine whether Arthur is training the powerful children to cause destruction and Miss Marblemaw is far from a fair person. She seems to take an instant dislike to Arthur and the other inhabitants of the island. Arthur and Linus have to do everything it takes to stop the ministry from taking the children away from them. It’s a test of their love, for the children, for each other, and for all that they hold dear, and the extent to which they are willing to go for it. 

Klune’s books (and there are a few others apart from The House and Somewhere Beyond) are comforting, whimsical reads that make you happy as well as question your beliefs. I think of them as books to read when you need a little bit of cheer in your life and don’t want to think too hard. The plot can feel a little too simplistic and the humor a bit banal but you will still be captivated by the characters and the storytelling. Somewhere Beyond the Sea also has great LGBTIQA+ representation which is so important in stories. Arthur and Linus are interesting characters and it’s fun to get to know and see them grow. 

Somewhere Beyond the Sea is easy to read as the language is simple. It’s funny and heartfelt at the same time. There’s magic and adventure that makes you keep turning the pages. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a light, fun read to take their mind away from the humdrum of real life. 

Somewhere Beyond the Sea

TJ Klune

Published: 2024

Publisher: Tor

Pages: 405, Paperback

I heard about Riley Sager from a BookTuber I loved (She has long stopped making content and I couldn’t be more upset about it). She didn’t love his books much but she still wouldn’t stop recommending them whenever someone asked about thrillers she had read. The book she didn’t like much and gave two stars was ‘The House Across the Lake’. I picked it up because though she gave it two stars she still said it wasn’t a bad read if you hadn’t read Sager before. I really enjoyed it. I think she gave ‘Survive the Night’ one star because she couldn’t give it a zero star rating but I still enjoyed that as well. Sager tells predictable stories especially if you read a lot of thrillers but they are compulsive and hard to put down while they last. 

The one book that she did highly recommend was ‘Lock Every Door’ and I was excited to get my hands on a copy. My reasoning was if I had enjoyed books that she hadn’t been particularly thrilled about, then I was sure to love one that she was raving about. I stumbled upon a copy of Lock Every Door at Books Mandala in Baluwatar, Kathmandu, and though the font wasn’t eye-friendly, I bought it. I like thrillers that are based in apartments or closed spaces. They have a claustrophobic feel to them that I really enjoy, despite giving me goosebumps and making me feel uncomfortable. Isn’t that the best feeling when you are reading mysteries and thrillers? 

Lock Every Door is about a woman named Jules Larson who lands a new job as an apartment sitter at the Bartholomew, one of Manhattan’s most high profile buildings and home to the rich and famous. Jules finds out that her boyfriend, Andrew, has been cheating on her and she moves out of their shared flat. This leaves her practically homeless as she has little money in her bank account. So she takes up the job at the Bartholomew despite her friend Chloe warning her about its dark history. The job comes with a few rules. She can’t have visitors over. She must not spend nights away from the apartment. And she shouldn’t disturb the other residents. 

These seem like simple rules to Jules especially since she will be making about $4000 a month for the next three months and getting to stay at a really luxurious apartment. She makes a new friend, Ingrid, who is another apartment sitter in the same building. Ingrid confesses to Jules that the building scares her but Jules dismisses it. That night, Jules hears a scream from Ingrid’s apartment and the next day Ingrid is gone. The girl who hired Jules, Lesley, tells her Ingrid left without notice but Jules thinks something sinister is going on and that Lesley, along with the building’s other residents, is trying to hide it. She starts searching for Ingrid and looking for clues behind her disappearance and in the process uncovers a dark and deadly secret. Ingrid isn’t the first apartment sitter to have disappeared. 

Lock Every Door has a nice plot. There are elements of suspense and tension. You keep turning the pages. But it’s also predictable, especially if you read or watch a lot of mysteries. I could guess what was happening when I was less than halfway into the book. A character entered and what was going on became clear to me. I wasn’t wrong despite hoping there was another ending than the one I was guessing. But I can understand why the BookTuber couldn’t stop talking about Sager’s books. They are gripping stories that are enjoyable to read. Sager is also known for plot twists that you don’t see coming. All in all, I would say you don’t want to miss out on his books that are good distractions from whatever is going on in your life. 

Fun fact: Riley Sager is actually the pen name of American author Todd Ritter.

Fiction

Lock Every Door

Riley Sager

Published: 2019

Publisher: Penguin Random House UK

Pages: 368, Paperback

I first heard about Jojo Moyes because of her hugely popular book ‘Me Before You’. Published in 2012, this romance novel was all the hype back then. It turned my non-readers friends into readers overnight. The book has a sequel ‘After You’ which was published in 2015 and a second sequel ‘Still Me’ published in 2018. I often got asked if I had read the book. The answer to which was always a resounding no. And I had no intentions of reading it either. Something about the whole hullabaloo around the book had put me off, and I wasn’t a big reader of romance either. In a way, in my mind, I wrote Moyes off as a writer of fluff that I wasn’t going to waste my time on. 

Then a friend whose reading choices always fascinated me recommended ‘The Giver of Stars’ by Moyes. I reluctantly picked it up. I didn’t expect to like it but it was one of the best books I had read that year. I still recommend it to everyone I know and it’s one of my picks when I have to give a book to someone. Set in small-town 1930’s Kentucky, the book is based on the real-life Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky, or the Horseback Librarian program as it was called then. The program delivered books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s traveling library and ran from 1935 to 1943, making books accessible to over 100,000 rural inhabitants. I love historical fiction and The Giver of Stars was compelling. Romance is one aspect of the novel but there’s a lot to it than just that. 

I have since then retracted my stand on Moyes and look forward to her books, though I still haven’t read Me Before You. ‘The Girl You Left Behind’ is another fascinating work that tells the story of two women who are connected by a beautiful painting. Moyes, I have come to realize, writes about women in an honest, empathetic, and engrossing way. She doesn’t show them as weaklings or as extremely courageous women through and through. Instead, she makes them completely human and relatable–with both strengths and weaknesses.

‘Someone Else’s Shoes’ is also the story of two women, Sam and Nisha, whose fates collide when they mistakenly pick up each other’s bags at the gym. Sam is struggling with a depressed husband and a boss who pretty much hates her. She can’t afford to lose her job because her family depends on the income. Worse, her best friend has cancer. So when she finds Christian Louboutin shoes and a Chanel jacket in a Marc Jacobs bag that she thought was hers, she tries them on and feels like a new person. 

Nisha (who the shoes belong to), on the other hand, had it all till she didn’t. Her lavish lifestyle comes to a startling halt when her husband throws her out of the penthouse they share, blocking her access to all their accounts as well as her clothes and shoes. She finds herself working in the same hotel where she once stayed in order to survive till she can eventually get back at Carl and reclaim what is rightfully hers. Then her husband offers her a settlement if she can return the Christian Louboutin shoes to him. The only problem is she doesn’t have them but she is determined to get it back which is how she eventually meets Sam and the two become unwilling allies in order to get their lives back on track. 

Narrated alternately by the two main characters, Someone Else’s Shoes is a compulsive read that you don’t want to put down. There’s a little bit of romance too but it fits into the storyline and doesn’t seem forced. It also deals with some heavy themes like identity, loss, and grief, though these aren’t given the seriousness they deserve. But I have no complaints about the writing or the plot. Sam and Nisha, and the friends they have and make along the way, are all interesting characters. I was hooked on this gorgeous book about the importance of female friendships.

Someone Else’s Shoes

Jojo Moyes

Published: 2023

Publisher: Penguin Random House UK

Pages: 423, Paperback