1Q84
<p><b>Earphones Award Winner (<i>AudioFile Magazine</i>) </b></p> <p>The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.</p> <p>A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver's enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls <i>1Q84</i> - "Q" is for "question mark". A world that bears a question. </p> <p>Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled. </p> <p>As Aomame's and Tengo's narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer: a beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police; a reclusive, wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent television-fee collector. </p> <p>A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell's, <i>1Q84</i> is Haruki Murakami's most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers. </p> <p><b>BONUS AUDIO:</b> Audible interviews the translators of <i>1Q84</i>, Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel.</p>