I don’t know an avid reader who hasn’t wanted the opportunity to sit down with their favorite author to discuss the future—their own or the world’s. Japanese fans of bestselling writer Haruki Murakami are in luck because it would seem that their favorite writer welcomed the conversations even if it only took place via email.

The esteemed writer has taken the time out of his busy schedule to answer more than 3,500 emails—he received nearly 38k questions in all—and a small portion of these writer-fan exchanges are now being put out into the world by his publisher, Shinchosa. Questions ranged from topics like cats (obviously) to Nobel Prizes (duh) to burping (okay) and—in case you were wondering—no, he has never wanted to be a cat personally and yes, he finds all the speculation about the possibility that he could win a Nobel Prize rather annoying to be honest.

The physical edition has eight volumes filled with 473 of the 3716 answers that Murakami composed, there is also a digital edition available thanks to the writer’s special request that is swiftly rising up the ranks of Amazon’s digital sales charts. It’s in 13th place at the moment—though we wager that number would be a heck of a lot higher if there was an English iteration of it available worldwide.

At the moment, Shinchosa has said they have no plans to translate the work so it will only be available in Japanese. The whole situation sounds rather like something straight out of one of Murakami’s fantastic books where an ordinary person can suddenly interact with something fantastic. I’d rather like the experience of reading all the advice Murakami has for people from all walks of life, but I will not, unfortunately be able to read them. Maybe I can find a friend who knows Japanese….something tells me that I need to know exactly how he answers the cat question.

Who would you send a literary Dear Abby to? I’m waffling between Penelope Lively and JK Rowling myself. Tell me your choice in the comments below or tweet to me @bookoisseur!

HT: EW
Image: Men Without Women Press Tour