1Q84!

It came out today. If you need to ask what, precisely, it is, then myGOD, man (or woman), what can you possibly be doing to fill the empty hours of your life?
It, of course, is Haruki Murakami's trilogy, 1Q84. Here in the US, all three books are being published between one set of very interesting covers (there's an image on the dust cover and another image on the book itself underneath).
If you've never read Murakami, start with Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and then move on to Windup Bird Chronicle. After that, take your pick: Wild Sheep Chase? Kafka on the Shore? Dance Dance Dance? Murakami's books are hilarious, touching, surreal and very real all at the same time. The characters find themselves embedded in alternative and very odd worlds and logic, and respond accordingly. As you read Murakami you feel like there's something very profound going on, but even as you cannot identify what it may be you find you don't give a shit because his writing is just so entertaining.
So I'll be reading this heavily throughout October and November, and I am this close to playing work-hooky tomorrow so I can stay at home and read, like that greedy reader in the Twilight Zone episode who finds, much to his delight, that the whole world has blown up and he now has all the time in the world to read.