Already a blockbuster sensation in Japan, Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 quickly became the novel that everyone in America is reading, too. And for good reason—it’s an intensely readable fusion of cults, sex, violence, love, and alternate realities. Murakami’s not touring America, but his longtime translator, Jay Rubin, is the next best thing. Expect a discussion about what it’s like to pull the work of a master apart in one language and reassemble it in another while keeping the genius intact, and whether Rubin himself believes that 1Q84 is Murakami’s best work yet. (Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Ave, 624-6600, 7 pm, free)