I don't know if I have a favourite, but I did enjoy "Sputnik Sweetheart" more than some others. "1Q84" was really good. I found Murakami easy to binge on, and reading too many at once easy to fall into. They were very moreish. David Mitchell, on the other hand and despite the similarities, is sufficiently different (and to my mind, better, but that's obviously personal preference) that I can read them more slowly.

Mathematics; about seven years ago, I was dissatisfied with my maths (or more to the point, I could feel my ability slipping away for lack of practice) so I decided to do a masters in maths. I wanted to be significantly more capable with mathematics than I was. Just that. No other reason.

I wrote about it a bit here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11267827