Name: The Strange Library
ISBN: 9780385354301

村上春樹

In a fantastical illustrated short novel, three people imprisoned in a nightmarish library plot their escape.

The Strange Library

Ghofran Mustafa 

It reminded me of Where The Wild Things Are movie.

Colton Ray

This was the most pointless thing I've ever read and has only cemented my decision to never waste my time on this overrated author.

maderinn⟢

What a strange book, living up to it’s title “The Strange Library.” I appreciate the vivid, colourful illustrations that paints and welcomes each chapter. Having read his other works before, this was very Murakami-esque indeed. It’s a foretaste of his world—elements of surrealism, explorations of alienation and loneliness, gritty moments but also soft ones that inclines you to look within. The fine line between the conscious and the unconscious starts to blur. Reading it was a wonderful dream, but on the other spectrum, bizarrely horrific too.

It's straightforwardly surreal but the thing i found most absurd in the book that had since been bothering me till the last page is this

"To tell the truth, i wasn't all that eager to learn about Ottoman tax collection - the topic had just popped into my head on my way home from school. As in, I wonder, how did the Ottomans collect taxes? Like that."

lmao like he couldn't possibly be any more random. I mentally chuckled through the whole book thinking about that line, honestly. 

3 stars because i've given his another better pieces 4, but it's still good.

Christine Kraus

This book was super odd, but made me super entranced. The amount of imagination present in the small amount of pages is frankly quite inspiring, and yet each of the oddities also called back to each other. I feel that this is the kind of book that will reveal something new upon each reading, and now I long to read more by Murakami in the future!

Deepika Ramesh

Maybe, on a rainy day, when I want to read something super short, and see some quaint pictures, I will seek The Strange Library‘s help that day again. Full review here: https://worncorners.wordpress.com/201...

aywen

Knocked it out in about 20 minutes; this book really highlights Murakami's ability to pen short stories. Loved the fantastical environment he was able to craft in such a short piece, as well as the little cameo (or at least the likeness of??) of a sheep man from Murakami's other work: A Wild Sheep Chase.

Wynter

Short and sweet - a real treat when you are craving some classic Murakami. Dive into the weird and enjoy this dream-like story, but don't expect to understand what just happened.

Matthew Royal

Sarah Pino

Midori Kobayashi

would have worked better as my intro to the author. now it just feels meh.

having read kafka in chinese i would definitely say murakami’s books work better with chinese translation

this feels like the type of thing that would get me a fail if i write it in school but would be heavily analysed just because it was written by an actual author 

but i am digging it i love to see how peculiar human imagination is 

archie

having read kafka in chinese i would definitely say murakami’s books work better with chinese translation

this feels like the type of thing that would get me a fail if i write it in school but would be heavily analysed just because it was written by an actual author 

but i am digging it i love to see how peculiar human imagination is 

Hellboy TCR

Read it after seeing Sasidharan's translation Malayalam Weekly. He shouldn't do translations. This is a typical Murakami work, I think he himself will hate the ending though.

High Fidelity

Ashley J

Lia Min

I don't know how to feel. It was short, but it impressed me

Rucha Phatak

The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami was an experience in itself. The way the book is designed intrigues the reader to delve inside this strange, almost diabolic library. You may want to run away from it and never want to leave it at the same time!

Amy Grieve

The art style of this illustrated novel certainly wasn't my cup of tea. I don't feel like it added anything to the story other than make it feel more surreal. To me story didn't make much sense either, perhaps the essence of the story was lost in translation or simply has more significance in Japanese culture.

Jason Porterfield

This is a gorgeously packaged short story, the colorful illustrations belie its bleak heart. It holds a lot, for a tale that takes all of 20 minutes to read.

Elizabeth Garza

Whelp. That was weird. What did I just read? No idea. But it was well written and I did read it all (though it's not very big at all), so there's that. SMH weird, man.

Natalie Hanna

2.5 stars.

It was okay. There's nothing I didn't like about it, but I also didn't really love anything about it. It was far too short and while I could picture everything going on, there just wasn't a lot to this one.

I did identify with the little boy though, especially when he said Why do I act like this, agreeing with people when I really disagree, letting people force me to do things I don't want to do?

Anna Leigh

I don't know what I was expecting but it definitely wasn't that

Melissa Eder

Uhm this was weird, and I'm not sure how to even rate this one. 😲

Edit: I'm going for a 2.5 for this. I was engrossed but also didn't... Feel anything? I'm not sure if it was supposed to be horror, (it wasn't scary) or just a weird novel/Parabel? It's confusing but also a fun and short book. Definitely prefer this over his short stories.

The Strange Library

Reviews

Highlights