Philip Gabriel Books

Vol. 2: book three translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel

How can you save your friend's life if she doesn't want to be rescued? In a tranquil neighbourhood of Tokyo, seven teenagers wake to find their bedroom mirrors are shining. At a single touch, they are pulled from their lonely lives to a wondrous castle filled with winding stairways, watchful portraits and twinkling chandeliers. In this new sanctuary, they are confronted with a set of clues leading to a hidden room where one of them will be granted a wish. But there's a catch: if they don't leave the castle by five o'clock, they will be punished. As time passes, a devastating truth emerges: only those brave enough to share their stories will be saved.

" ... A novel of metaphysical reality, it is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom."--Publisher's description

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. *PRE-ORDER HARUKI MURAKAMI'S NEW NOVEL, THE CITY AND ITS UNCERTAIN WALLS, NOW* '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

While their stories influence one another, at times by accident and at times intentionally, the two come closer and closer to intertwining.

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. 'A story of love in a cool climate, intensely romantic and weepily beautiful...it is startlingly different: a true original' Guardian 'Casablanca remade Japanese style...It is dream-like writing, laden with scenes which have the radiance of a poem' The Times 'This wise and beautiful book is full of hidden truths' New York Times 'This book aches...an eloquent treatise on the vertiginous, irrational powers of love and desire' Independent on Sunday 'A beautiful, atmospheric novel sustained by Murakami's flair for philosophical mediation at its most human' Irish Times

[Killing Commendatore] marks the return of a master. -Esquire More of Murakami's magical mist, but its size, beauty, and concerns with lust and war bring us back to the vividness and scale of his 1997 epic, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle.'' -The Boston Globe No ordinary trip; get ready for a wild ride. -Entertainment Weekly Again and again, the author of 1Q84 has delivered vast, complicated and engrossing narratives that bind together in unpredictable ways that are absolutely worth the wait. True to form, his latest comes in at just over 700 pages. The story of a painter's discovery of a lost work of art builds to a superb puzzle of monumental philosophical and emotional depth. -BookPage Murakami returns with a sprawling epic of art, dislocation, and secrets. . . . Pleasingly beguiling. -Kirkus Reviews A meticulous yet gripping novel whose escalating surreal tone complements the author's tight focus on the domestic and the mundane. . . . Consistently rewarding. -Publishers Weekly

A beautifully packaged hardback edition of Haruki Murakami's classic mystery story about love, the cosmos and other fictional universes, now with a new introduction by the author Sumire is in love with a woman seventeen years her senior. Miu is glamorous and successful. Sumire is an aspiring writer who dresses in an oversized second-hand coat and heavy boots like a character in a Kerouac novel. Sumire spends hours on the phone talking to her best friend K about the big questions in life: what is sexual desire, and should she ever tell Miu how she feels for her? Meanwhile K wonders whether he should confess his own unrequited love for Sumire. Then, a desperate Miu calls from a small Greek island: Sumire has mysteriously vanished... 'Confirms Murakami as a master of his craft... Out of this world' Time Out

Included in this collection of stories is one in which a mirror appears out of nowhere and a night-watchman is unnerved as his reflection tries to take control of him, and another in which a couple's relationship is unbalanced after dining on exquisite crab while on holiday.

An intimate look at writing, running, and the incredible way they intersect, from the incomparable, bestselling author Haruki Murakami. While simply training for the New York City Marathon would be enough for most people, Haruki Murakami decided to write about it as well. The result is a beautiful memoir about his intertwined obsessions with running and writing, full of vivid memories and insights, including the eureka moment when he decided to become a writer. By turns funny and sobering, playful and phulosophical, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is rich and revelatory, both for fans of this masterful yet guardedly private writer and for the exploding population of athletes who find similar satisfaction in athletic pursuit.

A mesmerising mystery story about friendship from the internationally bestselling author of Norwegian Wood and 1Q84 Tsukuru Tazaki had four best friends at school. By chance all of their names contained a colour. The two boys were called Akamatsu, meaning âe~red pineâe(tm), and Oumi, âe~blue seaâe(tm), while the girlsâe(tm) names were Shirane, âe~white rootâe(tm), and Kurono, âe~black fieldâe(tm). Tazaki was the only last name with no colour in it. One day Tsukuru Tazakiâe(tm)s friends announced that they didn't want to see him, or talk to him, ever again. Since that day Tsukuru has been floating through life, unable to form intimate connections with anyone. But then he meets Sara, who tells him that the time has come to find out what happened all those years ago.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Including the story "Drive My Car”—now an Academy Award–nominated film—this collection from the internationally acclaimed author "examines what happens to characters without important women in their lives; it'll move you and confuse you and sometimes leave you with more questions than answers" (Barack Obama). Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are lovesick doctors, students, ex-boyfriends, actors, bartenders, and even Kafka’s Gregor Samsa, brought together to tell stories that speak to us all. In Men Without Women Murakami has crafted another contemporary classic, marked by the same wry humor and pathos that have defined his entire body of work.

Tomura is startled by the hypnotic sound of a piano being tuned in his school. It seeps into his soul and transports him to the forests, dark and gleaming, that surround his beloved mountain village. From that moment, he is determined to discover more. Under the tutelage of three master piano-tuners -- one humble, one cheery, one ill-tempered -- Tomura embarks on his training, never straying too far from a single, unfathomable question: do I have what it takes? Set in small-town Japan, this warm and mystical story is for the lucky few who have found their calling -- and for the rest of us who are still searching. It shows that the road to finding one's purpose is a winding path, often filled with treacherous doubts and, for those who persevere, astonishing moments of revelation

STEP INTO THE CITY When a young man's girlfriend mysteriously vanishes, he sets his heart on finding the imaginary city where her true self lives. His search will lead him to take a job in a remote library with mysteries of its own. When he finally makes it to the walled city, a shadowless place of horned beasts and willow trees, he finds his beloved working in a different library - a dream library. But she has no memory of their life together in the other world and, as the lines between reality and fantasy start to blur, he must decide what he's willing to lose. A love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a parable for these strange times. PRAISE FOR HARUKI MURAKAMI 'The world's most popular cult novelist' Guardian 'Wild and thrilling. . . Murakami is a master storyteller and he knows how to keep us hooked' Sunday Times 'Totally gripping' Daily Express 'It's safe to say that there's no one like Murakami' Literary Review 'No other author mixes domestic, fantastic and esoteric elements into such weirdly bewitching shades' Financial Times

The eight stories in this new book are all told in the first person by a classic Murakami narrator. From memories of youth, meditations on music, and an ardent love of baseball, to dreamlike scenarios and invented jazz albums, together these stories challenge the boundaries between our minds and the exterior world. Occasionally, a narrator may or may not be Murakami himself. Is it memoir or fiction? The reader decides. Philosophical and mysterious, the stories in First Person Singular all touch beautifully on love and solitude, childhood and memory. . . all with a signature Murakami twist.