I really liked South of the Border, West of the Sun - it's a rather short novel and IMO pretty focused thematically. And then, of course, Norwegian Wood is a must-read.
I finished Norwegian Wood a couple weeks ago, it reminded me a lot of South of the Border. SOTB only gets a touch of surreal towards the end; beyond that, they're similar in their relatively down-to-earth view of the protagonist's struggle with interpersonal interactions.