I have, for years, been reading my first Murakami: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. This probably sounds like a bad thing, but after seeing some comments about it I

I have, for years, been reading my first Murakami: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. This probably sounds like a bad thing, but after seeing some comments about it I felt compelled to offer a small defense (as in--do read it, but maybe trust someone else's advice on which Murakami to read first). I absolutely adore it, and have gifted two copies of it since I started reading. But, for the past several years, most of my engaged/active reading time is going into a deep pile of dense nonfiction that I'd like to get through--leaving Murakami with my I-am-failing-to-sleep-so-bad-that-I-might-as-well-read-for-an-hour-or-two slot. I'm roughly 2/3 of the way through. I'm always happy to pick it up, but sometimes I'll go many months without needing to. There's something calming (!= boring) about the pace (of the plot, and the narrator's thoughts, and of the language itself) that usually defuses whatever mind-race was keeping me awake, yet manages to keep me turning pages until my eyelids are heavy.