mmm ... I really liked Monkey Brain Sushi (particularly Amy Yamada and Kyoji Kobayashi's) though I haven't heard of Mother of Dreams. Monkey Brain also makes a nice companion to Speed Tribes in its survey of a modern, quasi-Westernized Japan. Though Speed Tribes covers more of the non-fiction beat.

The Kodansha translation of Norwegian Wood is actually pretty good. Reading through it didn't give me the impression of being dumbed down for ESL purposes (a fear I had going in already) and I paged through the Vintage translation when it was released and never noted any significant discrepancies in content or style. Doing a more substantial compare'n'contrast between the two has been a possible project for me (though admittedly, one with a low priority).