New Jersey teens can't read Norwegian Wood

Murakami's novel of love and mental illness, because parents complained of drug and sex scenes.

They can still read Town of Cats, an excerpt from his new novel, IQ84, which will be out next month. This excerpt deals with a young man's relationship with his difficult father, and uses the device of a story -- a man lost in a town of cats -- within a story to illustrate that this weird, not self-created predicament is "the place where he is meant to be lost." His life, in other words. Teens should identify with that, no?

I loved the excerpt and am impatient for the book to arrive.

Meanwhile, I will have to be content with this Q&A with the author on Town of Cats in the New Yorker.

I could also read Murakami on talent, focus, endurance -- what writing has in common with running.