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Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 1Q84 and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle comes a relentlessly inventive novel that dives deep into the very nature of consciousness.

“Fantastical, mysterious, and funny . . . a fantasy world that might have been penned by Franz Kafka.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
Across two parallel narratives, Murakami draws readers into a mind-bending universe in which Lauren Bacall, Bob Dylan, a split-brained data processor, a deranged scientist, his shockingly undemure granddaughter, and various thugs, librarians, and subterranean monsters collide to dazzling effect. What emerges is a hyperkinetic novel that is at once hilariously funny and a deeply serious meditation on the nature and uses of the mind.
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    The publisher provides the following statement about the accessibility of the EPUB file supplied to OverDrive. Experiences may vary across reading systems. After borrowing the book, you may download the EPUB files to read in another reading system.

    Summary

    This ebook features mark-up that supports accessibility and enables compatibility with assistive technology. It has been designed to allow display properties to be modified by the reader. The file includes a table of contents, a defined reading order, and ARIA roles to identify key sections and improve the reading experience. Headings allow readers to navigate the ebook quickly by level. Colors meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA contrast standards. There are no hazards.

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    • Appearance of the text and page layout can be modified according to the capabilities of the reading system (font family and font size, spaces between paragraphs, sentences, words, and letters, as well as color of background and text).

    • Not all of the content will be readable as read aloud speech or dynamic braille.

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    • No information is available.

    Navigation

    • Table of contents to all chapters of the text via links.

    • Elements such as headings, tables, etc for structured navigation.

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    • High contrast between text and background

    • Color is not the sole means of conveying information

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  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      July 26, 2010
      Murakami's two stories—which alternate, chapter by chapter—are told by two narrators, who split duties here. Ian Porter is the baritone, thoughtful and deliberative; Adam Sims is lighter spirited, flightier, and more amused by the bizarre comedy of Murakami's puzzle box. Both readers are well chosen, expertly picking their way across the minefield of this intoxicating, perplexing story. And their balancing act mimics the book's alternation of tones, styles, and stories. The recording is studded by occasional studio sound effects that are hardly necessary, but do manage to cleverly amplify the woozy, trippy disorientation of the tale. A Vintage paperback.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 1, 1993
      Murakami's lightning prose more than sustains the elaborate plot of this thriller, set in a Tokyo of the near future.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      September 2, 1991
      There ought to be a name for the genre Murakami ( A Wild Sheep Chase ) has invented, and it might be the literary pyrotechno-thriller. The plot here is so elaborate that about 100 pages, one-fourth of the book, elapse before its various elements begin to fit together, but Murakami's lightning prose more than sustains the reader. Embellished with witticisms, wordplay and allusions to such figures as Stendhal heroes and Lauren Bacall, the tale is set in a Tokyo of the near future. Thanks to a wonderland of technology, an intelligence agent has had his brain implanted with a ``profoundly personal drama'' that allows him to ``launder'' and ``shuffle'' classified data, and all that he knows of the drama is its password, The End of the World. But after interference from a scientist and from the Semiotecs, a rival intelligence unit, the subconscious story is about to replace the agent's own perceptions of reality. Intertwined with the agent's attempts to understand his plight are scenes from The End of the World. Murakami's ingenuity and inventiveness cannot fail to intoxicate; this is a bravura performance.

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  • English

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