Hard to say. After Kafka I would’ve said Norwegian Wood. And after NW I would’ve said Hard-Boiled. After hard boiled, I would say Wind Up Bird.

I do think Killing Commendatore breaks the mold a little bit. I do want to stress his short story collections. They really are fantastic.

The book is 336 pages, not the story.

Time Out of Joint is a fun one, as is Eye in the Sky.

This was my introduction to Murakami. I’ve read almost all his books by now, save for some of his earlier, less developed works. As you get through them, you see that he’s sort of making the same soup with slightly different ingredients. I really enjoyed Killing Commemdatore and 1Q84. My least favorite was probably Colorless Tzukuru. His short story books, particularly The Elephant Vanishes, is really good, as are his two nonfiction books about running and Writing as a Vocation.

Thomas Pynchon. I did a paper on The Crying of Lot 49 in college and was like “Ill read his other books now.” Not. I picked up Vineland. Nope. Mason & Dixon. Nope. V. Nope. Against the Day. Gravity’s Rainbow. Forget it. I’ve not like, all his books and have only ever finished Lot 49.

This isn’t exactly what you’re asking, but my wife read two books in very close proximity to each other. One was Wild by Cheryl Strayed and one was Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. She told me about these books as she was reading them. We went to the movies to see Gone Girl, and a little more than halfway through, I became very confused and I turned to my wife and said, “I don’t think this is a true story.” She was like, “Of course it’s not. Wtf are you talking about?” Turns out I conflated the two books she read.