John Freeman's literary dream

John Freeman, president of the National Book Critics Circle, writes in the Denver Post:

One of my recurring dreams involves selling all my possessions, shutting down my cellphone and e-mail, and setting off around the country - and then the world - by train with a small suitcase full of great books. If I ever do this, I'd take things I had already read. And if I had to narrow this group to a list of 25, here is what they would be. I'm not sure they would all fit in one suitcase, but they'd certainly be worth packing two.

Number Two on his list:

The Wind Up Bird Chronicle | Haruki Murakami. (1997).

An unemployed man loses his cat and sets off on an odyssey that takes him across the past half-century of Japanese history in this hilarious, grotesque and essential novel.

Find out about the book that beat Murakami.

--Marshal Zeringue