Hyperkinetic and relentlessly inventive Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is Haruki Murakami s deep dive into the very nature of consciousness. Across two parallel narratives Murakami draws readers into a mind-bending universe in which Lauren Bacall Bob Dylan a split-brained data processor a deranged scientist his shockingly undemure granddaughter and various thugs librarians and subterranean monsters collide to dazzling effect. What emerges is a novel that is at once hilariously funny and a deeply serious meditation on the nature and uses of the mind.