The City and Its Uncertain Walls: A Novel

"Speaking of literary buzz, many bookshops are opening at midnight to celebrate the launch of is Haruki Murakami’s The City and its Uncertain Walls , translated by Philip Gabriel, on November 19. It’s his first new novel in six years. Expect “DJs spinning jazz records and spaghetti bars,” says Publisher’s Weekly . “And in New York City, Christina Tosi, CEO of the Brooklyn-based bakery Milk Bar, is creating Murakami-themed muffins—Murakuffins—for local release parties.” It’s about a teenage boy whose girlfriend mysteriously disappears. He never gets over it, and finally finds her working in a dream library in a shadowy parallel world. But she doesn’t remember him at all. The publisher describes it as: “a love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them [and] a parable for these strange times.” All that is to say: expect magical realism, dream logic, and plenty of Easter Egg surprises for longtime Murakami fans."