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The Artist's Bookshelf: Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

The Walker Art Center introduces

The Artist’s Bookshelf

, a new book club that kicks off at 6:30 pm on Wednesday, May 5, at Walker Community Library (2880 Hennepin Avenue South, Minneapolis). The book club, a reading group led by artists, writers, and Walker staff, premieres with a discussion of Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle led by New York-based choreographer/artist-in-residence Jennifer Monson. Monson’s seven-month residency, which celebrates bird migration through dance, features four public performances (April 30-May 2) and has involved area school children in bird-watching activities and educational programs. Request a copy of each book at www.mplib.org to pick up at a library near you and join the discussion. All programs are free and open to the public. The Artist’s Bookshelf will continue with programs in July and September.

Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1998, Vintage Publishers) is at once a detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets of World War II. In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife’s missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid 16-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan’s forgotten campaign in Manchuria.

Jennifer Monson is a New York-based choreographer/community activist. Her latest work, Bird Brain: Ducks and Geese, concludes a five-year project tracing the northward journey of geese and ducks, from Texas to Canada, through dance. Built around environmental stewardship goals, her project and Walker residency seek to examine the physical and metaphorical relationship between human activity and natural habitats.

Find discussion questions for The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle at www.walkerart.org. For more information, visit www.walkerart.org or www.friendsofmpl.org, or call 612.375.7622.

The Artist’s Bookshelf is presented in partnership with the Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library.

Walker without Walls is made possible by generous support from Target.