1Q84 – The New Harry Potter?

In hype terms at least there’s a similarity.  Japanese author Haruki Murakami’s cult trilogy 1Q84 is coming to the UK and US next month and already there’s a big buzz surrounding the release.  Over 1 million copies were sold in Japan in just two months and high sales are also expected in Western markets.  A number of US bookshops are planning to stay open until midnight to deal with the expected rush and the UK publishers are dealing with huge numbers of queries from booksellers.  Is the British public really ready for a 1,000 page translation of a Japanese story?  We’ll see soon enough.