Haruki Murakami's Reading List
The 6 books that shaped Haruki Murakami — novelist.
Japan's most internationally celebrated novelist, blending surrealism, loneliness, music, and quiet magic.
Influential Books
Norwegian Wood
Haruki Murakami(1987)
Murakami's most autobiographical novel — a realistic love story set against 1960s Tokyo student life.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Haruki Murakami(1994)
Murakami's magnum opus — a surreal journey through suburban ennui, war memory, and alternate realities.
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald(1925)
Murakami translated Gatsby into Japanese and calls Fitzgerald the writer who first made him want to write.
The Long Goodbye
Raymond Chandler(1953)
Chandler's prose style — cool, detached, melancholic — deeply influenced Murakami's narrative voice.
Kafka on the Shore
Haruki Murakami(2002)
A boy runs away from home and enters a world of talking cats, ghostly soldiers, and living metaphors.
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
Haruki Murakami(2008)
Murakami's memoir on running marathons and writing novels — discipline as the foundation of creativity.