Toru Okada's cat has disappeared.

His wifw is growing more distand every day.

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

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

'Visionary... abold and generous book'

New York Times

'Murakami weaves textured layersof reality into a shot-silk garment of deceptive beauty'

Independent On Sunday

'Deeply philosophical and teasingly perplexing, it is imposible to put down'

Daily Telegraph

'Memerising, surreal, this really is the work of a true original'

The Times