Aspiring writers and readers who have long wondered where the mysterious novelist gets his ideas and what inspires his strangely surreal worlds will be fascinated by this engaging book from the internationally bestselling author. Haruki Murakami now shares with readers his thoughts on the role of the novel in our society; his own origins as a writer; and his musings on the sparks of creativity that inspire other writers, artists and musicians. Here are the personal details of a life devoted to craft: the initial moment at a Yakult Swallows baseball game when he suddenly knew he could write a novel; the importance of memory, what he calls a writer’s “mental chest of drawers”; the necessity of loneliness, patience and his daily running routine; the seminal role a carrier pigeon played in his career; and more.

A bossy child who lives under a white cloth near a tree; a schoolgirl who keeps dolls' brains in a desk drawer; an old man with two shadows, one docile and one rebellious; a diplomat no one has ever seen who goes fishing at an artificial lake no one has ever heard of. These are some of the inhabitants of PEOPLE FROM MY NEIGHBORHOOD. In their lives, details of the local and everyday --- the lunch menu at a tiny drinking place called the Love, the color and shape of the roof of the tax office --- slip into accounts of duels, prophetic dreams, revolutions, and visitations from ghosts and gods. In 26 "palm of the hand" stories --- fictions small enough to fit in the palm of one's hand and brief enough to allow for dipping in and out --- Hiromi Kawakami creates a universe ruled by mystery and transformation.

A thirty-something portrait painter in Tokyo is abandoned by his wife and finds himself holed up in the mountain home of a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. When he discovers a previously unseen painting in the attic, he unintentionally opens a circle of mysterious circumstances. To close it, he must complete a journey that involves a mysterious ringing bell, a two-foot-high physical manifestation of an Idea, a dapper businessman who lives across the valley, a precocious 13-year-old girl, a Nazi assassination attempt during World War II in Vienna, a pit in the woods behind the artist’s home, and an underworld haunted by Double Metaphors.

Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are lovesick doctors, students, ex-boyfriends, actors, bartenders and even Kafka’s Gregor Samsa, brought together to tell stories that speak to us all. In MEN WITHOUT WOMEN, Murakami has crafted another contemporary classic, marked by the same wry humor and pathos that have defined his entire body of work.

In the spring of 1978, a young Haruki Murakami sat down at his kitchen table and began to write. The result: two remarkable short novels --- HEAR THE WIND SING and PINBALL, 1973 --- that launched his career. These powerful, at times surreal, works about two young men coming of age are stories of loneliness, obsession and eroticism. Widely available in English for the first time ever, newly translated, and featuring a new introduction by Murakami himself, WIND/PINBALL gives us a fascinating insight into a great writer’s beginnings.