Birthday Stories: Selected and Introduced by Haruki Murakami, Haruki Murakami,and ...Birthday Stories is a 2002 short story anthology edited by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. Despite the theme's happy connotations most of the short stories have a dark, melancholic atmosphere.Introduction: My birthday, your birthday, by Haruki Murakami — added to English ed. onlyForever Overhead, by David Foster WallaceTurning, by Lynda SexsonThe Birthday Cake, by Daniel LyonsTimothy's Birthday, by William Trev...

I love the genre of short story but mostly in Farsi. English short stories usually don’t appeal to me, but as a true Fan of Murakami, I knew he wouldn’t let me down and he didn’t, reading them as the girl who has her birthday tomorrow, made me think and i liked the different writing styles, so basically everyone should read these around their birthday

Thirteen short stories each story with a twisted birthday story and characters you wouldn't want to meet. A few stories fell flat while most of them are quite entertaining.The short stories:1. Russell Banks: The Moor4 🌟*Secrets and kindness2. Denis Johnson: Dundun3 🌟A accident which went quite wrong for the birthday boy(I wish the story was a bit longer with a proper story)3. William Trevor: Timothy's Birthday4 🌟An unlikely birthday celebration of a son by two elderly parents and the unexpected

A strange selection of stories. As with most short story collections, some are great and others are instantly forgettable. The first few I enjoyed a lot, then the odd one here or there jumped out at me. And there were others I found exceedingly dull. Overall an interesting reading experience.

'Birthday Stories' is an interesting collection of stories, some that I enjoyed and some that I did not enjoy, my favourite stories were 'Turning' by Lynda Sexson, the story of a young boy being told a story by his three elderly ladies, a different kind of story to tell a young man but there was a message behind it which I really liked. 'Angel of Mercy, Angel of Wrath', the story of Eleanor Black who on her 71st birthday has crows flying into her apartment, which initially frightens up but leads...

Haruki Murakami first published this short story collection in 2002 in Japan; first English translation was in 2004 (Harvill Press). He provides an Introduction, explaining why he decided to collect some recent stories published prior to short stories on the topic of birthdays. He gives brief descriptions of the stories in the Introduction, and before each of the 13 short stories is a couple of paragraphs about the author. Those paragraphs are not merely a recitation of what the author has publi...

It was Murakami's plan to collect some short stories that their main theme is about birthdays to translate them to Japanese. I have read this beautiful anthology in my birthday & I've enjoyed Murakami's selection a lot. Not to mention that as expected, his short story"Birthday Girl" outweigh all the others .. But he introduced me to new, contemporary writers that I would have never heard about .. I truly liked "the Moor: Russel Banks", "The Birthday Cake: Daniel Lyons", " Angel of Mercy, Angel o...

I do not like Murakami's prose. That being said, I appreciate that he has an incredibly imaginative mind. But, just like in fashion or in an art gallery, appreciating that something is a work of art doesn't mean that I would like to wear it, or that I would hang it on my wall. Murakami is a fantastic writer, but who isn't really my type. As for this compilation of short stories; they're...different, to say the least. I would recommend it to anyone who doesn't expect a collection of soppy, fairyt...

I found this to be quite a strange collection of "birthday" stories. Some were highly enjoyable, others were just a little bizarre. I cannot honestly say that any of them stood out as a favourite of mine, but I did like ones better than others. Murakami's story at the end, "Birthday Girl", about a waitress who gets to make a wish on her 20th birthday was one of the stories that I enjoyed. A wish that is never revealed to us, which of course annoyed me to no end because I am an incredible curious...

Reading this making me emotionally numb and bitter. You won't get a happy 'happy birthday' in here, it was more to the other side of it-- secretive and strange, quite unpleasant unlike the happiest jolly you would expect from a birthday celebration. Weird how Murakami could find few others so-alike 'Murakami' and collected them together in a spine. Still having that unsettled wandering feeling after reading Birthday Girl (Murakami)-- I've read this one before in his other book. Some stories were...

Haruki Murakami is the editor, and the author of one of the thirteen stories in this book, and I picked it up because him. I thought the idea behind it was interesting enough, all stories that somehow are about birthdays. It is not all "Happy birthday" though. Most of the stories have a more serious undertone than that. I think I can safely say that I really like about half of the stories. I had actually read, and liked two of them before I came across this book, the stories by Murakami and Raym...

Out of the 13 birthday stories, including one by Murakami himself, I enjoyed more than half of them, whereas the rest were just meh, or too bizarre for me. I did love the different writing styles of all the authors, but none of the stories had a “happy” birthday feel about them. Most of them just dealt with the sadness of another year passing by. It was a little depressing... But Murakami’s short story “Birthday Girl” at the end managed to lift up my spirits a little.My favorite story would have...

My ex roommate's ex boyfriend had gifted this book to her on one of her birthdays. When they broke up she left it here for me. It's much later that i realized that it was a collection edited by Murakami and not completely written by him. There are some good stories in the collection. 'Dundun' by Denis Johnson is one i liked. I plan to look the author up and read more by him. Some style that i liked which seemed cinematic to me, in the way words were put, 'You'd think the sky didn't have any air

In the introduction of the book, the editor (and in one case, the author), Murakami, himself, mentioned that he hoped the reader to find at least one of the stories in the book, gives you real pleasure and makes the reader to spend part of his/her next birthday re-reading it. I dare say it hit the spot. I am going to re-read some of the stories, if not the whole book, on my next ( 17th, if you believe me :p ) birthday.Honestly, I enjoy only some of the stories and I don't quite understand some.

I began reading this last year, but I just had to keep it to savour on my birthday, earlier this year. Not sure why I haven’t written this review earlier, but here we go: What a strange, lovely collection of stories selected by Murakami. People usually tend to force happiness down your throat on birthdays, but I often find that absurd and unnecessary. I loved how the collection was a potpourri of emotions and feelings. While some stories left a melancholic after taste, some were haunting, and so...

Picked this one up cuz it’s Murakami, but turned out that it was a short stories anthology compiled by him; of his favourite birthday stories from Western authors. Surprisingly, I enjoyed this anthology though some of the stories were incomprehensible. But it was a nice read since I craved for stories that carved in complex structures and sentences, in a literary sense.

This is a collection of stories, selected by Haruki Murakami, each one of them revolving around birthdays. Knowing the theme of the anthology, you would expect this to be a cheery, feel-good read. But nope. Almost all the stories have a certain melancholy about them, a feeling of loss, and loneliness, leading you to deeply contemplate. Some of them leave you feeling strangely haunted.I don't think this book will be enjoyed by everyone. But it did appeal to my introverted self, and I found myself...

Though the idea of an anthology of short stories about birthdays at first seemed a little gimmicky, as soon as I saw Murakami had compiled this book I was intrigued. His choices are surprisingly Western. I found it comforting that he included Raymond Carver and was excited to be able to sample the likes of Paul Theroux and David Foster Wallace. All in all Murakami provides a very extensive range of short fiction styles though, again, I struggle to see why Murakami doesn't include at least one o...

This book was a gift from my best friend on my 31th birthday. The poem by Paul Simon made me fall in love with the book. The introduction was very interesting. Also the brief introduction to each author by Murakami was very informative. I liked some of the stories very much and didn't enjoy some much. The Moor, Angel of Mercy,Angel of Wrath were really enjoyable. Close to the Water's Edge touched me deeply, and I also liked its style. The ending of Ride is etched in my head. Timothy's Birthday a...

Some people take their birthdays very seriously, and some also take other people's birthdays so seriously. All these occasions and reactions, plans, etc can tell us a great deal. The book contains 13 short stories, selected by Murakami from contemporary American writers mostly and the last one he's written himself. An interesting theme for an anthology, birthday stories. I loved "The Moor", "The Birthday Present" and "Birthday Girl".

Strange birthday stories - most of them more dark and gloomy than you'd expect.But all of them leave you feeling like just did not get enough closure, which I think is the aim of this anthology. Makes you feel grateful for your ordinary birthday, somehow.

My favorite short story anthology.

SPECIAL DAYSA few weeks ago, I wrote here (https://southernyankeewriter.blogspot...), for the first time, about my birthday. I suppose one of the reasons I’d been thinking about it more than usual was because of the reading I’d been doing. It was reading that had gotten me thinking, not only about my own birthday, but about everyone else’s as well—about what birthdays in general meant, if anything, and about how different people celebrate them, face them, shy away from them, ignore them, or cope...

Interesting collection of stories put together by Murakami but it didn't move me much

The book started on a good and heartwarming note with Murakami's introduction. His notes on his own birthday made me think about my own birthday, and maybe that was the point on why Murakami decides to made a collection of birthday themed short stories, he wanted the reader to reflect on their own birthdays. His introduction felt close to my heart, it was very personal especially for me who have never read any of his works apart from his fictional works, it's like getting a new glimpse of Muraka...

Birthday stories is a somewhat hit and miss. Having already read and enjoyed Murakami’s own story contribution in blind willow sleeping woman and the Raymond Carver story in what we talk about when we talk about love I still felt it was worth a read having wanted to try some Denis Johnson and David Forster Wallace. The previously mentioned authors were highlights for me along with new discoveries Andrea Lee and Russell Banks. The rest were ok with some rather disappointing. I really enjoyed Mura...

A collection of short stories with one theme in common: they're all about birthdays - and yet they are nothing alike.The collection is dipped in a sea of melancholia and sadness, as birthdays are often associated with reflections and a profound outlook on the life that has passed by. People find themselves longing for closure, for hope, and for something more than they ever got. My favorite story was perhaps the first one in the collection. 'The Moor' by Russell Banks is lingering in the back of...

This is the first of the Murakami book I have read. It is not really his own book,he just introduced it. A bunch of great writers happened to have a short story made with a theme on birthdays and they sort of wanted to compile it. Though this is not wholly authored by Murakami,this was the book that made me so curious to find him and read him and it all too funny, it wasn't my birthday when I bought this book, at least not for the next 10 months! So what about birthdays? What makes them special?...

An amazing collection of short stories. True to Murakami's style, most of these are centered around the loneliness people feel at different stages of their lives - whether it's an old couple whose son doesn't come to celebrate his birthday with him anymore, or a young adult who feels alienated from his divorced mother, or a demented lady finding companionship with the birds who flew into her apartment. Curated from some of the more prominent writers, Murakami writes a short introduction before e...

This is one of a number of Murakami books I bought in one go and this being my third Murakami read, I can say it's the most disappointing up till now. I feel Murakami was infatuated with the concept, that being an anthology of shorts that revolve around birthdays, and somewhere along the way was more obsessed to finish it than make a good anthology. Not all concept good on paper do well beyond.Though it's a nice idea, the majority of the stories were a bit bland and tasteless. I found myself for...