Birth of an obsession?

Yup. I'm rapidly becoming a fan.

1. Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase
2. Ulrich von Liechtenstein, The Service of Ladies
3. Philip Roth, The Plot Against America
4. The Lifted Veil, 19th Century Women's Stories
5. Bremner, Bird, Fortune, You Are Here

Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
Not quite so obviously "strange", but unnerving all the same, and far more emotionally complex. A book that, despite the number of suicides, has a melancholy warmth and charm. Also some wonderfully funny exchanges:

[watching a porn movie] There was also a sound for a penis moving in and out of a vagina. I had never realised that such sounds even existed. The man was into a lot of heavy breathing, and the woman came up with the usual sort of expressions -- "Yes!" or "More!" -- as she writhed under him. You could also hear the bed creaking. These scenes just went on and on. Midori seemed to be enjoying them at first, but even she got bored after a while and suggested we leave, We went outside and took a few deep breaths. This was the first time in my life the outside air of Shinjuku felt healthy to me.
"That was fun," said Midori. "Let's try it again sometime."
"They just keep doing the same things," I said.
"Well, what else can they do? We all just keep doing the same things."
She had a point there. (p296)

There's immense richness in the images and references (many of which I'm sure I'm missing). I may have to reread The Great Gatsby to see how it fits (it's a favourite of the student narrator and of one of his associates). Despite the lack of strange sheep, there's an element of mystery: not all loose ends are tied up. For example, we never learn what happens to Watanabe's room-mate "Storm Trooper".