In the seven stories in this great collection, Ruki Murakami focuses on the lives of men who find themselves alone, without women, each on their own. Disappearing cats and smoky bars, lonely hearts and mysterious women, baseball and the Beatles - all these are woven together into mesmerizing stories that speak to all of us, embedded with the touch of ironic humor that characterizes his work. Haruki Murakami, a Japanese writer and translator, was born in Kyoto in 1949 and currently lives near Tokyo. His voluminous work has been translated into more than fifty languages, and he has translated important Western writers into Japanese. Murakami has won many awards and honors, including the Hans Christian Andersen Prize for Literature, the Franz Kafka Prize and the Jerusalem Prize. "A captivating book that cannot be resisted. Like a lost loved one, it continues to cling to you long after the relationship is over... Part allegory, part myth, part magical realism, part private detective a la Philip Merleau... Murakami is A performer of performance art." The New York Times
