Hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world

<b>From the #1 <i>New York Times </i>bestselling author of <i>1Q84 </i>and <i>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle </i>comes a relentlessly inventive novel that dives deep into the very nature of consciousness.</b><br><b> </b><br><b>“Fantastical, mysterious, and funny . . . a fantasy world that might have been penned by Franz Kafka.”—<i>The Philadelphia Inquirer</i></b><br><br>Across two parallel narratives, Murakami draws readers into a mind-bending universe in which Lauren Bacall, Bob Dylan, a split-brained data processor, a deranged scientist, his shockingly undemure granddaughter, and various thugs, librarians, and subterranean monsters collide to dazzling effect. What emerges is a hyperkinetic novel that is at once hilariously funny and a deeply serious meditation on the nature and uses of the mind.