100,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock 🇳🇿

Enjoy overnight NZ-wide delivery from our NZ-owned independent bookstore! 🎉

number9dream

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize
3.87 goodreads logo

Ratings/reviews counts are updated frequently.

Check link for latest rating.
( 26,312 ratings, 1,976 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
number9dream by David Mitchell follows Eiji Miyake, a young man from a rural Japanese island, as he journeys to Tokyo in search of his estranged father. The novel intricately blends reality with fantasy and delves into Eiji's vivid imagination and experiences, exploring themes of identity, dreams, and the complexity of human life. Set against the backdrop of a bustling city, the narrative weaves through moments of adventure, introspection, and surreal encounters.
Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$2799
OVERNIGHT NZ-WIDE DELIVERY

Found a better price? Request a price match

Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might enjoy this book if you're drawn to intricate narratives blending reality with fantasy, and if you appreciate stories rich in philosophical introspection and vivid imagery. It's a compelling choice for those who enjoy exploring themes of identity and belonging set against a backdrop of contemporary Tokyo.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

Shortlisted for the Booker and the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes

Shortlisted for the Booker and the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

number9dream by David Mitchell tells the story of Eiji Miyake, who arrives in a sprawling Japanese metropolis to track down the father he has never met. The city proves to be a mapless place if you are 18, broke, and the only person you can trust is John Lennon.

His eight-week hunt delves into the hinterland between the city and the mind. Here, a Polish art movie is no less real than the coffee in front of him. Letters from an Imperial Army soldier act as signposts to the next week, and he crosses paths with numerologists, station masters, gateballers, hostesses, organ harvesters, and insane chefs.

This philosophical, colourful, and sometimes violent novel is a dazzlingly inventive exploration of image, control, and memory.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

David Mitchell's number9dream has been praised for its inventive and richly textured narrative, blending dreams, visions, and a wide array of pop culture influences. It's noted for its experimental narrative style, weaving elements from various genres like action films, manga, and cyberpunk into a poignant coming-of-age tale. The novel's depiction of Tokyo as a complex and mesmerising labyrinth enhances its dream-like quality, making it a compelling read. The vivid prose and depth of characterisation have been highlighted, solidifying its place as a standout in modern fiction.

Book Hero reading reviews

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780340747971

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 04 April 2002

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Sceptre

Edition: 2nd edition

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 28.0mm

Width: 137.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 300g

Pages: 432

About the Author

David Mitchell's first novel, GHOSTWRITTEN, won the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. NUMBER9DREAM, his second, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 2003 he was selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists and his third novel, CLOUD ATLAS, was shortlisted for 6 awards including the Man Booker Prize and won the British Book Awards Best Literary Fiction and the South Bank Show Literature Prize. He lives in Ireland with his wife and daughter.

Also by David Mitchell

View all
  • Unruly
    A seriously FUNNY, seriously CLEVER history of our early kings and queens by one of our favourite comedians and cultural commentators. This will be the most refreshing, entertaining history of England you'll have ever read. Certainly, the funniest. Because David Mitchell will explain how it is not all names, dates or ungraspable historical headwinds, but instead show how it's really...
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $3000
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Cloud Atlas
    In Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, a complex tapestry of interwoven narratives unfolds across different time periods and locations, each story impacting the others in profound and unexpected ways. The tale begins in 1850 with a reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific Ocean and follows a disinherited composer striving to make his mark in pre-World War II Belgium. Later, readers are...
    Paperback
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • David Mitchell: Back Story
    David Mitchell, who you may know for his inappropriate anger on every TV panel show except Never Mind the Buzzcocks, his look of permanent discomfort on C4 sex comedy Peep Show, his online commenter-baiting in The Observer or just for wearing a stick-on moustache in That Mitchell and Webb Look, has written a book about his life. As well as...
    Paperback
    $2100
    Elsewhere:
    $2299
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Dishonesty is the Second-Best Policy
    Mitchell is an exceptionally clever, eloquent and spot-on commentator. We should be grateful for him. - Daily Mail David Mitchell's 2014 bestseller Thinking About It Only Makes It Worse must really have made people think - because everything's got worse. We've gone from UKIP surge to Brexit shambles, from horsemeat in lasagne to Donald Trump in the White House, from...
    Paperback
    $2600
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Thinking About It Only Makes It Worse
    What's wrong with calling a burglar brave? Why are people so f*ing hung up about swearing? Why do the asterisks in that sentence make it okay? Why do so many people want to stop other people doing things, and how can they be stopped from stopping them? Why is every film and TV programme a sequel or a remake? Why...
    Paperback
    $2600
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Ecology of Inclusive Education
    Educators today face two major challenges. The first is to develop an education system which meets the needs of an ever more diverse student population. The second is to successfully implement such a system. This requires nothing less than a revolutionary transformation of current approaches taken to education. Drawing on research-based evidence and offering over 70 concrete strategies to help...
    Hardback
    $54200
    Available
    Ships in 2-3 weeks
  • The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
    The Sunday Times Number One Bestseller, from the author of CLOUD ATLAS and THE BONE CLOCKS. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2010 In your hands is a place like no other: a tiny, man-made island in the bay of Nagasaki, for two hundred years the sole gateway between Japan and the West. Here, in the dying days of the...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Utopia Avenue
    ‘ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANTLY INVENTIVE WRITERS OF THIS, OR ANY, COUNTRY’ Independent The Number One Sunday Times Bestseller ‘Wildly entertaining’ Spectator ‘A stand-out triumph’ Sunday Times ‘Superb’ Literary Review ‘Impressive’ New Yorker ‘Highly entertaining’ Times Literary Supplement A story of music and dreams, drugs and madness, love and grief, from the acclaimed author of Cloud Atlas The year is...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • The Bone Clocks
    A metaphysical thriller, meditation on mortality, and chronicle of our self-devouring times, this is the kaleidoscopic new novel from the author of Cloud Atlas. LONG LISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2014 One drowsy summer's day in 1984, teenage runaway Holly Sykes encounters a strange woman who offers a small kindness in exchange for 'asylum'. Decades will pass before Holly...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • An Introduction to Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
    Highly Commended, BMA Medical Book Awards 2015 An Introduction to Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery encompasses the full range of oral and maxillofacial surgery. It also addresses the necessary core competencies for undergraduates and those pursuing basic specialist training. The second edition now includes international perspectives. In the UK, oral and maxillofacial surgery is a unique discipline—the ninth of ten currently...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Diversities in Education
    Diversities in Education is a challenging text that will help educators, teacher educators, and trainee teachers become more effective in teaching a range of diverse learners. It covers five major categories of difference: sex and gender; social class and socio-economic status; race, ethnicity, and culture; beliefs and religion; and different abilities. The book asks the urgent questions all policy-makers, educators,...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Diversities in Education
    Diversities in Education is a challenging text that will help educators, teacher educators, and trainee teachers to be more effective in teaching a range of diverse learners. It covers five major categories of difference: sex and gender; social class and socio-economic status; race, ethnicity and culture; beliefs and religion; and different abilities. It asks the urgent questions all policy-makers, educators,...
    Hardback
    Sold Out

More from General Fiction

View all
  • The Wedding People
    'BEST READ OF THE YEAR SO FAR' THE TIMES 'BOOKS AS FUN AS THIS ONE ARE FEW AND FAR BETWEEN' GUARDIAN Phoebe Stone arrives at a grand beachside hotel in Rhode Island wearing her best dress and least comfortable shoes. Immediately she is mistaken for one of the wedding people — but she's actually the only guest at the Cornwall...
    Paperback
    $2399
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    (3)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Throne of Glass Box Set (Paperback)
    Enter the realm. Unleash the darkness. Live the legend. Discover the worldwide phenomenon of the #1 New York Times-bestselling Throne of Glass series in this gorgeous 8-book box set! In a land without magic, an assassin is summoned to the castle. She has no love for the vicious king who rules from his throne of glass, but she has not...
    Set
    $12400
    Elsewhere:
    $15500
    (6)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Goal
    Welcome to Briar U!Get ready for your newest obsession . . . Discover the addictive world of the Off-Campus series from The Queen of Hockey Romance, Elle Kennedy!Read The Goal now for the perfect forced proximity romance! She's good at achieving her goals . . . College senior Sabrina James has her whole future planned out: graduate from college, kick...
    Paperback
    $2499
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Red Rising
    The first book in the incredible New York Times bestselling series Darrow is a Helldiver, toiling beneath the surface of Mars. As a member of the Red caste, he performs grueling labor in the belief that his sacrifice will enable future generations to one day inhabit the surface of the Red Planet. The Reds are humankind's lowest caste, living in...
    Paperback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    The Ballad of Falling Dragons [Special Deluxe edition]
    The No.1 Sunday Times bestselling sensation When the Moon Hatched continues with the second book in The Moonfall Series, The Ballad of Falling Dragons… Raeve’s thirst for vengeance continues to burn, as does her love for Kaan Vaegor – a staunch beacon from a past she’s yet to face. With Rekk’s blood still fresh on her hands, she learns the...
    Hardback
    $5999
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Project Hail Mary
    Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, the SUNDAY TIMES and NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of The Martian, offers a gripping new adventure in hard science fiction. With endorsement from notable figures such as Barack Obama and a slew of five-star reviews, this novel promises a thrilling and intellectually stimulating journey. Ryland Grace, a lone astronaut, finds himself on a...
    Paperback
    $2399
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    (4)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Carl's Doomsday Scenario
    Join Carl and his ex-girlfriend's cat Princess Donut as they fight fantastical creatures and deadly mobs in the second book in the smash-hit Dungeon Crawler Carl series -now with bonus material exclusive to the print edition Now on the third floor, Carl and Donut have to fight harder than ever. They've already proven that a Coast Guard vet and once-and-forever...
    Hardback
    $4699
    Elsewhere:
    $6000
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Score
    Welcome to Briar U! Get ready for your newest obsession... Discover the addictive world of the Off-Campus series from The Queen of Hockey Romance, Elle Kennedy! Read The Score now for the perfect friends with benefits romance! He knows how to score, on and off the ice... Allie Hayes is in crisis mode. With graduation looming, she still doesn't have...
    Paperback
    $2499
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Golden Son
    ENDER'S GAME meets THE HUNGER GAMES in this, the second in an extraordinary trilogy from an incredible new voice.'I'm still playing games. This is just the deadliest yet.' Darrow is a rebel forged by tragedy. For years he and his fellow Reds worked the mines, toiling to make the surface of Mars inhabitable. They were, they believed, mankind's last hope....
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Theo of Golden
    THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING PHENOMENON'For anything to be truly good, there must be love in it. Nothing is what it's supposed to be if love is not at the core.' One morning, a stranger arrives in the town of Golden. No one knows who he is or where he came from…His name is Theo and he's arrived there by chance –...
    Paperback
    $2899
    Elsewhere:
    $3499
    (5)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    On Mystic Lake
    One of the greatest storytellers of our time - Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing Annie Colwater's only child has just left home for school in England. On that same day, her husband of twenty years confesses that he's in love with a younger woman. Left alone in the beautiful California house which was once a home, Annie...
    Paperback
    $3100
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • East of Eden
    Set against the backdrop of the fertile Salinas Valley in California, East of Eden is a profound and compelling novel by John Steinbeck, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. This masterful narrative charts the intertwining destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—across multiple generations. Steinbeck's intricate portrayal of human nature and enduring exploration of moral themes...
    Paperback
    $2499
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.