Comment by dyukqu
19 hours ago
# Catch-22 (by Joseph Heller) - had been seeing it mentioned on HN (and other sites) for years, I finally read it and it was one the best novels I've ever read.
# The Universe and Dr. Einstein (by Lincoln Barnett) - recommended for anyone who is interested about Einstein's thought process that gave birth to two great theories.
# What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (by Haruki Murakami) - it's my first book from H. M. and I really liked it. It's kind of a memoir and made me like Murakami and now I plan to read his novels too.
# How to Build a Car (by Adrian Newey) - that famous F1 car designer... Great read. Gives readers a chance to glimpse into both (technical) thought process behind designing a race car and human side of it.
# Basic Mathematics (by Serge Lang) - not *reading* exactly, working through it (to brush the rust off of my math fundamentals).
Murakami’s fiction novels are extremely different from “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”. If you want to try another non-fiction book of his check-out “Underground : The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche”, I loved it. If you go the fiction route “Kafka on the Shore” and “A Wild Sheep Chase” are a good starting point. Avoid some of his longer works unless you enjoy his style.
Norwegian Wood is far superior to his magical realism.
He’s a great writer of prose, but I feel it’s wasted on magical realism. He could have been one of the true greats.
Catch 22 is just fantastic isn’t it. I might re-read in 2026!
I've only read one Murakami novel but I loved it. Hard-Boiled Wonderland.
Someone recommend H.M. To me a few weeks back. Started w/ Kafka by the Shore and then finished Norwegian Wood a few days after that. Couldn’t put them down, both were terrific.