The City and Its Uncertain Walls

A Novel

By: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator

Narrated by: Brian Nishii

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A REAL SIMPLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the author of Norwegian Wood and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World comes a love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for our peculiar times.

"Haruki Murakami invented 21st-century fiction." —The New York Times • "More than any author since Kafka, Murakami appreciates the genuine strangeness of our real world." —San Francisco Chronicle • "Murakami is masterful." —Los Angeles Times

When a young man’s girlfriend mysteriously vanishes, he is heartbroken – and determined to find the imaginary town where he suspects she has taken up residence. Thus begins a lifelong search that takes the man into middle age, to a job in a remote library with mysteries of its own, and on a journey between the real world and this otherworld: a shadowless city where unicorns roam and willow trees grow.

There he finds his beloved working in a different library – a dream library. But she has no memory of their life together and, as the seasons pass and the man grows more uncertain about the porous boundaries between these two worlds, he must decide what he is willing to lose.

A love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a parable for these strange times– and singular and towering achievement by one of modern literature’s most important writers.

"Truth is not found in fixed stillness, but in ceaseless change/movement. Isn't this the quintessential core of what stories are all about?” —Haruki Murakami, from the afterword

Envying Haruki

A man is wearing a dress.
When asked “why?”
He answers:
"When I wear a dress, I feel like a few lines from a poem"
That man is a man created by Haruki Murakami, in his new book that I am listening to,
And I envy Haruki,
Because I was supposed to tell you that when I hug you I feel like a few lines from a poem, or even more, a whole poem,
But I only told you that after I heard Haruki.

You know that I am competitive,
So I'm trying to beat this Haruki guy before his next book comes out.

So you should know that when I hug you I feel like:

A drop of rain falling into the most beautiful flower in the garden,

Leonardo's brushstroke between the lips and cheeks of the Mona Lisa,

A grain of sand that the wind carried and dropped on the highest place on the Everest,

But I have to admit,

That it is difficult to compete with "When I wear a dress I feel like a few lines from a poem"
... A sentence that one day,

will stand on the stage in Stockholm,

and receive the Nobel Prize.

Amazing surreal storytelling

Savor like a fine scotch with a splash of mineral water. A story of grief, loss, despair and other dimensions. Visits from ghosts and becoming disconnected with your own shadow, finding that the past and future do not exist.
Jazz music and freshly baked blueberry muffins, sitting by an old stove on a cold day.
A story that is maybe better read than listened to, but I’m thankful for the option.

His writing is magical

Murakami’s intriguing stories are sublime, combined with his magical writing, his books speak to the layers upon layers of the human psyche and heart. I’m so spoiled after reading his work that I can hardly read another.

Lyrical beauty in story wonderfully narrated

Dreamlike story poetically written and the narrator feels authentic to the book. I have read much by this author and this book feels like a summary of his philosophy.

The same but different and so much better

Have I heard this before, I’m sure I have… oh yeah… wait, that’s different, oh wow! That’s what I thought throughout and it was such an amazing journey. I love the shifts. It was great!