Finished Kafka on the Shore by Murakami rather quickly, showing that I kind of enjoyed reading it. It’s weired for sure. That Johnny Walker killing the cats scene was hard to get through, some parts of the story I don’t get, but that’s OK, I found the Hoshino character kind of funny. Book brought some memories back from my two visits to Shikoku, the first one directly lead me to come to Taiwan. I also hitchhiked through Japan like Nakata, though I didn’t saw any leeches raining down. Glad I restarted my literary journey with this book. Anyone wants to suggesst the next Murakami book I should read? Norwegian Wood perhaps?
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Dance Dance Dance is great. That’s my first.
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First in “you like best” or first Murakami book you read?
Hmm— it was the first one I read. It’s the sequel to Wild Sheep Chase which is also very good.
I’d have to think about if it’s number one though.
Hard Boiled Wonderland is up there.
The early stuff is very good too, but just can’t as expansive as the more mature stuff.
IQ84 for example. Or Windup Bird Chronicles.
And his short story compilations are very good too.
We need parameters! 
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You didn’t mention Norwegian Wood. That seems to be most people’s favorie Murakami novel, though it’s quite different from most of the others - much more conventional. Perhaps that’s the reason.
Perhaps there’s another reason entirely.
It’s ok, bleak. I had a friend whose wife, both Japanese btw, told me that mostly middle age women read Murakami because they’re sad to begin with.
Has nothing to do with conventional or not. Tell me, do you think everyone is in the couch? 
Honestly, I got away from him because it’s always the same thing really, sad well dressed guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly got no love.
It’s why I like DDD so much. That book and The Windup Bird Chronicles more— not that the same protagonist is there but the plot is just so much better than “ sad man gets by. “
Maybe it’s his most popular because it isn’t sci fi/fantasy for boys, but a romance that appeals to a wider (mostly female) audience.
Maybe it’s his most popular (in sales I assume you to mean) because there have been so many reprints and special collector’s editions, and cloth bound volumes etc. that people own more than one or two or three copies.
It could be the sappy story, but the sappiness of all of Murakami’s male protagonists runs about the same. Same build, same hobbies for the most part, same attitude towards love and relationship, same earlobe fetish–
There’s enough of NW in the “Sci-fi” novels to keep the womenfolk interested. And anecdotally, my Japanese friend’s wife says mostly Japanese women read him. How that translates to international sales, IDK. Maybe foreign boys like Japanese women’s fiction for some reason.
Frankly I find Murakami a case of steadily diminishing returns. Whatever book you read first will be your favorite, and you will enjoy each succeeding book less than the one you read before, because he keeps recycling the same themes and motifs, and like you said, the same vaguely dissatisfied, apathetic middle class Japanese male character. And there’s only so many electric sheep I can count before his dreamlike fantasyscapes become less intriguingly Kafkaesque and more irritatingly twee indie-pop.
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His short stories were more expansive.
Went to Eslite to see what other Murakami books they have. Couldn’t make up my mind, so l bought this one instead. 
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I liked it a rot.
If anything it will change the way you eat plain rice.
With butter and soy sauce
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Good butter!
That’s quite a feat. May I ask why? It’s not the original language.
I’d already read them in English and I wanted to practise my Chinese.
The translations were also pretty good and pretty accurate.
Just one third in. Easy read, but it’s a bit lacking something, suspense, surprise, weirdness… ? I dunno. It’s not a book l can’t put down even if l’m dead tired, yet.
The weirdness picks up. But it’s not a Murakami weirdness, just a what is WITH these people weirdness. Enjoy,
Fascinating and a classic to have in any library. Expensive to buy in original or early copies (but might have to splurge on this one!). Krafft-Ebing’s work catalogues numerous case studies of what he saw as sexual pathologies, including behaviours such as fetishism, sadism, masochism, etc. 
1905 Psychopathia Sexualis with Especial Reference to Antipathic Sexual Instinct, A Medico-Forensic Study
Fascinating reading folks…fascinating.