Men Without Women

'I find writing novels a challenge, writing stories a joy. If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden.'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 vanishing cats and smoky bars, lonely hearts and mysterious women, baseball and the Beatles, woven together to tell stories that speak to us all.Marked by the same wry humor that has defined his entire body of work, in this collection Murakami has crafted another contemporary classicAbout the authorLegend has it that on a warm day in Spring 1974 while watching a baseball game Murakami-san had the inspiration to write his first novel, later called Hear the Wind sing.It won him his first Literary award and is part of The Trilogy of the Rat together with Pinball 1973 and A Wild Sheep Chase .His career as an writer took off fast and a steady flow of Novels, Short Stories, Articles and Documentaries followed.The fact that he spent a good part of his life outside Japan, mainly in the US and southern Europe, is maybe the key factor of his growing worldwide success.The stories and settings are familiar to Westerners and yet there is a distinctive Japanese touch.