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. (20021018)

ニューヨークが選んだ村上春樹の短篇集、2005年3月31日、日本上陸！ 1993年Knopf 社で編集、出版された短篇選集『The Elephant Vanishes』は英語圏で好評を博し、ロング・セラーとなっている。その日本語版がついに刊行！　英語版から著者みずから翻訳を試みた、新バージョンの「レーダーホーゼン」など初期短篇17作品。更にNew Yorkerデビュー当時を振り返る書下ろしエッセイも収録した話題作。 ニューヨーカーに選ばれ、世界で読まれ、日本に再上陸した初期短篇の数々。アメリカデビュー当時を語るエッセイなど話題満載の短篇集。 「村上春樹はまずなにを読めばいい？」「短篇をいくつか読みたい。」そんなあなたへ贈る、ニューヨーカーが選んだ村上春樹の初期短篇集。

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.

１、人の悪口を具体的に書かない　２、言い訳や自慢をなるべく書かない　３、時事的な話題は避ける。これが村上春樹さんがエッセイを書く時に自ら課したルールだそうです。そんな法則に則って書かれた、どうでもいいようだけど、やっぱりどうにも読み過ごすことが出来ない、心に沁みる興味津々のエピソード。究極のジョギング・コース、オキーフのパイナップル、ギリシアの幽霊、あざらしのくちづけ、、、、うーん、なるほど。いやあ、ほんとに。マッサージのように、心のこりをときほぐしてくれるハートウォーミングな語り口。それに彩りを添えてくれるのは、大橋さんの美しい銅版画。１０年ぶりに帰ってきた、アンアン連載の伝説のエッセイ『おおきなかぶ、むずかしいアボカド　村上ラヂオ２』。村上さん曰く「“日本でいちばんおいしいウーロン茶”を目指して書いた」エッセイ。肩の力を抜いて、気楽にご賞味ください。

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.