If you found Norwegian Wood to maybe be a bit uneventful overall I'd say Kafka on the Shore is a good contrast to that, I didn't much care for Norwegian Wood either. There's a sort of 'haziness' to Murakami's work; surreal and dreamlike so there's not much that's concrete to latch onto. I didn't think I was enjoying 1Q84 whilst I was reading it (the beginning to middle are a slog, so that's literally Book 1 to some of 2) but parts of it have stayed with me since.
Blue Bamboo Music I haven’t read too much by him, just the three mentioned above and his memoir about running, Kafka on the Shore was what got me back into reading consistently last year. I’ll have a little gap from Murakami for a while but I may read Wind Up Bird Chronicle when I do return.
