Murakami

Love him, hate him, Murakami is one of my favorite writers. I've read almost all of his books, of course translated to English, and the latest 19Q4 in one of the rare excellent Serbian translations. His plot lines and characters are somewhat quaint and sometimes terrifying or overly sentimental as well, but I relish each and every one of them. You get all caught up in the story or remarkable descriptions of scenery and then there are gems like this one:

“Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s what part of it means to be alive. But inside our heads — at least that’s where I imagine it — there’s a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in a while, let fresh air in, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you’ll live for ever in your own private library.”
 

— Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore