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Cover of South of the Border, West of the Sun

How long does it take to read South of the Border, West of the Sun?

Haruki Murakami

South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami takes about 4 hours 20 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.

About 4 hours 20 minutes

A weekend read

First published 1992. 236 pages, about 64,900 words.

9 days at 30 minutes a day

Estimate based on 275 words per page.

At other speeds

Slow, 150 words a minute 7 hours 13 minutes
Average, 250 words a minute 4 hours 20 minutes
Fast, 400 words a minute 2 hours 42 minutes

The page count is the median across 39 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.

About the book

Hajime - "Beginning" in Japanese - was an atypical only child growing up in a conventional middle-class suburb. Shimamoto, herself an only child, was cool and self-possessed, precocious in the extreme. After school these childhood sweethearts would listen to records, hold hands, and talk about their future. Then, despite themselves, in the way peculiar to adolescents, they grew apart, seemingly for good. Now, facing middle age, finally content after years of aimlessness, Hajime is a successful nightclub owner, a husband and father, when he suddenly is reunited with Shimamoto, propelled into the mysteries of her life, and confronted by dark secrets she is loath to reveal. And so, reckless with enchantment and lust, Hajime prepares to risk everything in order to consummate his first love, and to experience a life he's dreamed of but never had a chance to realize.

Subjects: Fiction, romance, contemporary, Japan, fiction, Japan -- Fiction., Man-woman relationships, Fiction, Fiction, romance, general

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