Haruki Murakami - 1Q84 (Random House Publishing)

This deluxe three-volume paperback boxed set-gorgeously designed editions in a see-through case, with a removeable sticker on the shrink wrap packaging-is a collector's item in the making. It beautifully showcases Haruki Murakami's most ambitious novel yet, 1Q84-a love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a dystopia to rival George Orwell's. The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo. A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver's enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84-"Q is for 'question mark.' A world that bears a question." Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled. As Aomame's and Tengo's narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer: a beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police; a reclusive, wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent television-fee collector. An instant bestseller around the world, 1Q84 is a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers.