1Q84 comes out next Friday! This will be the first major Murakami release when I’ve been in Japan. I was here when 『東京奇譚集』came out, but most of those stories had been published in magazines beforehand. Also, I had to drive 20 minutes to the closest bookstore to get my copy. This time I should be able to pick it up almost anywhere. I plan on making the rounds Thursday evening to see if anywhere accidentally puts it out early, but I don’t have much hope for that. I’m really tempted to take off from work on Friday. It will depend on what the workload looks like next week. If I take off from work, then the liveblog should begin at around 9AM JST on Friday. If not, probably 7PM. Check back next week on Wednesday or Thursday for an estimated start time.