Haruki Murakami: Underground (Hardcover, 2000, The Harvill Press)
Hardcover, 400 pages
Published Aug. 7, 2000 by The Harvill Press.
It was a clear spring day, Monday, March 20, 1995, when five members of the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo conducted chemical warfare on the Tokyo subway system using sarin, a poison gas twenty-six times as deadly as cyanide. The unthinkable had happened, a major urban transit system had become the target of a terrorist attack.
If one is going to read exactly one book about Aum Shinrikyō and the sarin attacks, this is my recommendation. It's not the only good book on the topic, but it's notable for focusing on the victims and impact of the cult over its leaders.
Even if one is looking to dive deeper, as I have, it's a good first book. You can't go wrong starting from a place of empathy.
