South of the Border, West of the Sun

Here’s a nice quote from a review: "In the heightened state of perception that exists just before the fall into adolescence, (for Murakami a place of sexual missteps and dark self-knowledge), where the slant of winter sun and every fiber of a girl’s blue sweater remain etched in memory, Hajime and Shimamoto each constructed a magical country out of the sound of (Nat King) Cole’s words, a place ‘beautiful, big, and soft.’"