The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami  {Reviewed by STELLA} With the new Murakami collection of stories on my reading pile, I just re-read The Strange Library, a charming illustrated novella about a boy who walks into a library and finds himself in a terrible situation. Wonderfully designed, this book is beautiful: a small hardback with images throughout, laid out perfectly with gorgeous endpapers and compelling details on each page. Yet it is the text that will take you on the best journey. You will open the book and not close it until you reach the end, delving further into the strange library alongside the boy, hoping for an outcome that will deliver you both back to safety. This is Murakami through and through, with its labyrinth of winding passages for feet and mind, and characters who are part-human (the bird girl and the sheep man), its sparseness of text which is somehow expansive, and a sense of unease in which we can place our own fears and apprehensions. Above all it is charming.