A New Review, 10 Best Haruki Murakami Novels, Five Stories to Read Online, and a Murakami Quiz

The Boston Globe published a review of Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki Josh Freeman. The review begins: "How does he do it? His sentences are as unfussy as Finnish furniture."  Doubtless an allusion to the Scandinavian setting for part of the novel, it is the kind of sentence Murakami himself would probably like. To read the review go to: http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2014/08/16/book-review-colorless-tsukuru-tazaki-and-his-years-pilgrimage-haruki-murakami/0RcogY8ua1YeLlxkve7hyH/story.html


Publishers Weekly published an article by well-know Murakami scholar Matthew Strecher, which includes his ranking of the ten best Murakami novels: A Wild Sheep Chase is at the top, followed by The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. To discover the rest of the list, go to: (http://publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/63604-the-10-best-haruki-murakami-books.html).
Strecher, of course, is the author of Dances With Sheep: The Quest for Identity in the Fiction of Haruki Murakami and a reader's guide to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. His newest book, The Forbidden Worlds of Murakami Haruki, has just appeared.

Openculture.com advertises the fact that five Murakami stories  [one comes from a novel] can be read online for free for a limited time and encourages fans to take advantage of the opportunity. Here are the links to the stories:
"Samsa in Love"
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/10/28/samsa-in-love
"Yesterday"
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/09/yesterday-3
Town of Cats 
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/09/05/town-of-cats
"U.F.O. in Kushiro"
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/03/28/u-f-o-in-kushiro-2
"The Folklore of Our Times"
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/aug/02/originalwriting.fiction1

You can read their interesting article here: http://www.openculture.com/2014/08/read-five-stories-by-haruki-murakami-free-online.html

And finally, here is a link to another Murakami quiz:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/quiz/2014/aug/27/haruki-murakami-quiz


Most questions are easy, but would you know how to answer this one?
One of contemporary literature's more athletic practitioners, Murakami has completed long-distance runs of up to what distance?