Staff Pick
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who have never read Haruki Murakami and those who love his books with feverish devotion. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a career-spanning collection of short stories guaranteed to amuse, disturb, beguile, and delight both devotees and novices alike. Recommended By Moses M., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
From the bestselling author of
Kafka on the Shore and
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle 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.
Review
"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
Review
"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, creating an aura about the world that for many of us just wasn't present before we read them." Chicago Tribune
Review
"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
Review
"In Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, the 25 stories juxtapose the deeply bizarre with the mundane to evoke fleeting moods of sadness, hope, nostalgia, and dread. (Grade: B+)" Entertainment Weekly
Review
"Readers who fear the short story...need to set hesitations aside here. Murakami is an open-armed, hospitable short story writer [with] a greatly appealing and embracing personal narrative voice....The beauty of the author's prose style seals every story's sharp delivery." Booklist
Review
"Murakami's matchless gift for making the unconventional and even the surreal inviting and gratifying creates hard little narrative gems....A superlative display of a great writer's wares. Absolutely essential." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[A] satisfying, entertaining collection from the writer of the brilliant Kafka on the Shore. It is a solid introduction to the eclectic talents of this master storyteller of the absurd." Seattle Times
Synopsis
Following the bestselling triumph of Kafka on the Shore, Murakami returns with a collection of stories that generously expresses his masterful fiction-writing skills. From the surreal to the mundane, these stories exhibit his ability to transform the full range of the human experience.
About the Author
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into thirty-four languages, and the most recent of his many honors is the Yomiuri Literary Prize, whose previous recipients include Yukio Mishima, Kenzaburo Oe, and Kobo Abe.