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.
