The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Tapa blanda

"Murakami writes of contemporary Japan, urban alienation and journeys of self-discovery, and in this book he combines recollections of the war with metaphysics, dreams and hallucinations into a powerful and impressionistic work" (Independent)

"Murakami weaves these textured layers of reality into a shot-silk garment of deceptive beauty" (Independent on Sunday)

"Critics have variously likened him to Raymond Carver, Raymond Chandler, Arthur C. Clarke, Don DeLillo, Philip K. Dick, Bret Easton Ellis and Thomas Pynchon - a roster so ill assorted as to suggest Murakami is in fact an original" (New York Times)

"Deeply philosophical and teasingly perplexing, it is impossible to put down" (Daily Telegraph)

"How does Murakami manage to make poetry while writing of contemporary life and emotions? I am weak-kneed with admiration" (Independent on Sunday)

Toru Okada's cat has disappeared and this has unsettled his wife, who is herself growing more distant every day. Then there are the increasingly explicit telephone calls he has started 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.