From the bestselling author of Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-up Bird Chronicles comes this superb collection of twenty-four stories that generously expresses Murakami’s mastery of the form. From the surreal to the mundane, these stories exhibit his ability to transform the full range of human experience in ways that are instructive, surprising, and relentlessly entertaining.

Here are animated crows, a criminal monkey, and an iceman, as well as the dreams that shape us and the things we might wish for. Whether during a chance reunion in Italy, a romantic exile in Greece, a holiday in Hawaii, or in the grip of everyday life, Murakami’s characters confront grievous loss, or sexuality, or the glow of a firefly, or the impossible distances between those who ought to be closest of all.

"A warning to new readers of Haruki Murakami: You will become addicted. . . . His newest collection is as enigmatic and sublime as ever." —San Francisco Chronicle“Whimsical, magical, daring or sometimes played with the mute in the bell of the trumpet. . . . The best of these linger far beyond the reading of them.” —Chicago Tribune“Murakami’s writing perfectly captures the way surreal, even seemingly supernatural, encounters can subtly alter the terrain of everyday life.” —Washington Post Book World“This collection shows Murakami at his dynamic, organic best. . . . In Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, Murakami demonstrates brilliantly the perils of trying to squeeze life into prefabricated compartments.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review