Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

BOOK CHANGE
February’s book has been updated to Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. We’ll read the originally planned book, An immense World, in March. Book club will be at the Seminole Heights Library in room 105. Dry food snacks and covered beverages are permitted in the meeting space.

Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.

A magnificent blending of the music, the mood, and the ethos that was the sixties with the story of one college student's romantic coming of age, Norwegian Wood brilliantly recaptures a young man's first, hopeless, and heroic love.