The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle cover art

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

 Preview

Get 30 days of Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30-day free trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options
Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Toru Okada's cat has disappeared and this has unsettled his wife, who is herself growing more distant every day. Then there are the increasingly explicit telephone calls he has started receiving. As this compelling story unfolds, the tidy suburban realities of Okada's vague and blameless life, spent cooking, reading, listening to jazz and opera and drinking beer at the kitchen table, are turned inside out, and he embarks on a bizarre journey, guided (however obscurely) by a succession of characters, each with a tale to tell.

© Haruki Murakami 1994 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

 Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Magical Realism World Literature Fantasy Magic Mind-bending

Critic reviews

Murakami writes of contemporary Japan, urban alienation and journeys of self-discovery, and in this book he combines recollections of the war with metaphysics, dreams and hallucinations into a powerful and impressionistic work
Deeply philosophical and teasingly perplexing, it is impossible to put down
Murakami weaves these textured layers of reality into a shot-silk garment of deceptive beauty
Critics have variously likened him to Raymond Carver, Raymond Chandler, Arthur C. Clarke, Don DeLillo, Philip K. Dick, Bret Easton Ellis and Thomas Pynchon - a roster so ill assorted as to suggest Murakami is in fact an original
Mesmerising, surreal, this really is the work of a true original
How does Murakami manage to make poetry while writing of contemporary life and emotions? I am weak-kneed with admiration
[A] mesmeric story
Visionary...a bold and generous book
All stars
Most relevant
Just amazing! Took me a while to get into the story but so glad I persevered. I think the narrator was a big part of what kept me listening. Such a performer with a myriad of characters to cover. Can't even begin to explain what it's about. Just thoroughly enjoyed the journey abd was sad when it ended.

Didn't want it to end!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I know people have different tastes. It makes the world interesting. So I would understand someone saying they don’t like an interpretation. It often happens that we read a book and the voices are branded into our consciousness and other people’s interpretations sound wrong. I get that. But I cannot understand those who berate this performer for what is clearly a brilliant (in every sense of the word) narration. The range is staggering. The characterisation is stunning: male, female, old and young alike.

As for the novel, it is Murakami’s wild imagination on day release. Bizarre and wonderful and weird and thrilling.

And it is very well read, honestly. I’m not lying.

Great reading - truly.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I loved the characters. I, honestly, couldn't stop listening. Rupert Degas is the best. Period.

Great Story, Great Narration.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Interesting book, "very Japanese" if that makes sense, but too much of a "visual" descriptions makes it unacceptable for some.

Japanese illusion of consciousness

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Loved the book - so dreamlike and weird and intriguing. Every character in it was interesting . Great narrator too.

Brilliant book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews