After Dark by Haruki MurakamiMurakami is at his best when in the realm of the fantastic, and this short novel does not disappoint. Told in realtime in the hours after midnight, the stories of sisters Mari and Eri Asai captivate the imagination; while Mari haunts the Tokyo streets with an increasingly eclectic range of acquaintances, Eri exists in a dreamworld that feels like a quiet creepy short film directed by David Lynch. Full of slang and references to American consumerism, this meditation on what happens in a major city while the majority of its denizens are asleep stays in the mind long afterward.