'A masterly novel' New York Times

'Such is the exquisite, gossamer construction of Murakami's writing that everything he chooses to describe trembles with symbolic possibility' Guardian

Read the haunting love story that turned Murakami into a literary superstar.

When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire - to a time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marches into his life and he has to choose between the future and the past.

*Murakami's new book Novelist as a Vocation is available now*

'Evocative, entertaining, sexy and funny; but then Murakami is one of the best writers around' Time Out

'Poignant, romantic and hopeless, it beautifully encapsulates the heartbreak and loss of faith' Sunday Times

'This book is undeniably hip, full of student uprisings, free love, booze and 1960s pop, it's also genuinely emotionally engaging, and describes the highs of adolescence as well as the lows' Independent on Sunday

Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy.

The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down.

As their parallel odysseys unravel, cats converse with people; fish tumble from the sky; a ghost-like pimp deploys a Hegel-spouting girl of the night; a forest harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since World War II. There is a savage killing, but the identity of both victim and killer is a riddle - one of many which combine to create an elegant and dreamlike masterpiece.

*Murakami's new book Novelist as a Vocation is available now*

'Wonderful... Magical and outlandish' Daily Mail

'Hypnotic, spellbinding' The Times

'Cool, fluent and addictive' Daily Telegraph

DISCOVER THE SHORT STORY COLLECTION THAT GAVE THE WORLD DRIVE MY CAR, THE BAFTA AND OSCAR WINNING FILM

'Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional'

A compelling mediation on the power of running and a fascinating insight into the life of this internationally bestselling writer. A perfect reading companion for runners.

In 1982, having sold his jazz bar to devote himself to writing, Murakami began running to keep fit. A year later, he'd completed a solo course from Athens to Marathon, and now, after dozens of such races, he reflects upon the influence the sport has had on his life and on his writing.

Equal parts travelogue, training log and reminiscence, this revealing memoir covers his four-month preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon and settings ranging from Tokyo's Jingu Gaien gardens, where he once shared the course with an Olympian, to the Charles River in Boston.

By turns funny and sobering, playful and philosophical, this is a must-read for fans of this masterful yet private writer as well as for the exploding population of athletes who find similar satisfaction in distance running.

*Murakami's new book Novelist as a Vocation is available now*

'There can never have been a book quite like this memoir of running and writing before. In its self-contained way, it's nothing less than an inspiration' Evening Standard

'Hugely enjoyable...You don't have to have run a marathon to be captivated' Sunday Telegraph

'Comical, charming and philosophical...an excellent memoir' GQ

Reality bends all the more acutely with lack of sleep in this stunning novel from the master of the surreal.

Eyes mark the shape of the city

The midnight hour approaches in an almost-empty diner. Mari sips her coffee and reads a book, but soon her solitude is disturbed: a girl has been beaten up at the Alphaville hotel, and needs Mari's help.

Meanwhile Mari's beautiful sister Eri lies in a deep, heavy sleep that is 'too perfect, too pure' to be normal; it has lasted for two months. But tonight as the digital clock displays 00:00, a hint of life flickers across the television screen in her room, even though it's plug has been pulled out.

Strange nocturnal happenings, or a trick of the night?

'A captivating mood piece, delicate and wistful' Evening Standard

A moving, thoughtful story of long-lost love and second chances.

Growing up in the suburbs in post-war Japan, it seemed to Hajime that everyone but him had brothers and sisters. His sole companion was Shimamoto, also an only child. Together they spent long afternoons listening to her father's record collection. But when his family moved away, the two lost touch.

Now Hajime is in his thirties. After a decade of drifting, he has found happiness with his loving wife and two daughters, and success running a jazz bar. Then Shimamoto reappears. She is beautiful, intense, enveloped in mystery. Hajime is catapulted into the past, putting at risk all he has in the present.

'Casablanca remade Japanese style...It is dream-like writing, laden with scenes which have the radiance of a poem' The Times

Toru Okada's cat has disappeared.

His wife is growing more distant every day.

Then there are the increasingly explicit telephone calls he has recently been receiving.

As this compelling story unfolds, the tidy suburban realities of Okada's vague and blameless life, spent cooking, reading, listening to jazz and opera and drinking beer at the kitchen table, are turned inside out, and he embarks on a bizarre journey, guided (however obscurely) by a succession of characters, each with a tale to tell.

*Murakami's new book Novelist as a Vocation is available now*

'Visionary...a bold and generous book' New York Times

'Murakami weaves textured layers of reality into a shot-silk garment of deceptive beauty' Independent on Sunday

'Deeply philosophical and teasingly perplexing, it is impossible to put down' Daily Telegraph

'Mesmerising, surreal, this really is the work of a true original' The Times

Birthday Girl is a beguiling, exquisitely satisfying short story . A taste of master storytelling, published to celebrate Murakami's 70th birthday.

She waited on tables as usual that day, her twentieth birthday. She always worked Fridays, but if things had gone according to plan on that particular Friday, she would have had the night off.

One rainy Tokyo night, a waitress's uneventful twentieth birthday takes a strange and fateful turn when she's asked to deliver dinner to the restaurant's reclusive owner. Birthday Girl is a beguiling, exquisitely satisfying taste of master storytelling, published to celebrate Murakami's 70th birthday.

Birthday Girl is also available in Birthday Stories and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.

We all live our lives carrying secrets we cannot disclose.

'Beguiling... Murakami is brilliant at folding the humdrum alongside the supernatural; finding the magic that's nested in life's quotidian details' Guardian

When a thirty-something portrait painter is abandoned by his wife, he holes up in the mountain home of a famous artist. The days drift by, spent painting, listening to music and drinking whiskey in the evenings. But then he discovers a strange painting in the attic and unintentionally begins a strange journey of self-discovery that involves a mysterious ringing bell, a precocious thirteen-year-old girl, a Nazi assassination attempt and a haunted underworld.

A stunning work of imagination, Killing Commendatore is a surreal tale of love and loneliness, war and art.

Read this imaginative masterpiece from the internationally bestselling author of Norwegian Wood

The year is 1984. Aomame sits in a taxi on the expressway in Tokyo.

Her work is not the kind which can be discussed in public but she is in a hurry to carry out an assignment and, with the traffic at a stand-still, the driver proposes a solution. She agrees, but as a result of her actions starts to feel increasingly detached from the real world. She has been on a top-secret mission, and her next job will lead her to encounter the apparently superhuman founder of a religious cult.

Meanwhile, Tengo wishes to become a writer. He inadvertently becomes involved in a strange affair surrounding a literary prize to which a mysterious seventeen-year-old girl has submitted her remarkable first novel. It seems to be based on her own experiences and moves readers in unusual ways. Can her story really be true?

Both Aomame and Tengo notice that the world has grown strange; both realise that they are indispensable to each other. While their stories influence one another, at times by accident and at times intentionally, the two come closer and closer to intertwining.

'It is a work of maddening brilliance and gripping originality, deceptively casual in style, but vibrating with wit, intellect and ambition' The Times

A mesmerising, epic, utterly involving masterpiece from Haruki Murakami
The year is 1Q84.

This is the real world, there is no doubt about that.

But in this world, there are two moons in the sky.

In this world, the fates of two people, Tengo and Aomame, are closely intertwined. They are each, in their own way, doing something very dangerous. And in this world, there seems no way to save them both.

Something extraordinary is starting.

'1Q84 has a range and sophistication that surpasses anything else in his oeuvre. It is his most achieved novel; an epic in which form and content are neatly aligned' Independent on Sunday

A FREE SAMPLER OF HARUKI MURAKAMI'S NEW MASTERPIECE

This sampler contains the first two chapters of Haruki Murakami's magnum opus, 1Q84, introducing the reader to the hero and heroine of the story, Tengo and Aomame.

The full ebook of Books One and Two will be available in one volume on 18th October 2011, followed by the ebook of Book Three on 25th October.


The year is 1984. Aomame sits in a taxi on the expressway in Tokyo.

Her work is not the kind which can be discussed in public but she is in a hurry to carry out an assignment and, with the traffic at a stand-still, the driver proposes a solution. She agrees, but as a result of her actions starts to feel increasingly detached from the real world. She has been on a top-secret mission, and her next job will lead her to encounter the apparently superhuman founder of a religious cult.

Meanwhile, Tengo is leading a nondescript life but wishes to become a writer. He inadvertently becomes involved in a strange affair surrounding a literary prize to which a mysterious seventeen-year-old girl has submitted her remarkable first novel. It seems to be based on her own experiences and moves readers in unusual ways. Can her story really be true?

Both Aomame and Tengo notice that the world has grown strange; both realise that they are indispensable to each other. While their stories influence one another, at times by accident and at times intentionally, the two come closer and closer to intertwining.