I read this book having a very limited prior knowledge of Japanese culture so some of the concepts were fairly alien to me. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful book that handles some very difficult issues, particularly teen suicide, in a thoughtful and sensitive manner. The narrative is very well written, and it's engaging. I read the entire book in one sitting and it's the first book with which I've done that in years. Murakami manages to grab the reader and pull them into the world he's created. The characterisation is strong, with a clear narrative voice and structure. I would say that I'd recommend this book to anyone, but it deals with very adult themes so is best limited to more mature readers. The use of the motifs of music and literature are very cleverly interwoven throughout the text. My favourite thing about this book was not the wonderful quality of the writing, or the engaging way in which one is made to care about the characters, but the delicate and sensitive way in which Murakami portrays mental illness. It's a difficult topic to write about, and in a book where almost everyone seems to suffer with some degree of mental illness it would be easy to trivialise the issue, but it is always handled with care and love.