This is not Murakami's longest, or indeed best work, but it is nevertheless a worthy part of his canon, in my opinion. It deals with some of Murakami's favourite themes, the shadowy psychic side of people's personalities, the thin line between reality and fiction, love and loneliness and how people connect with each other when language often seems so inadequate. The story centres round a chance meeting between a young woman, whose sister is lying at home in some kind of psychic coma state, and a young man who plays in a band. The chapters are divided into the hours of the night and the story flicks back and forth between the young couple and their discussions in a diner, and the 'reality' for the girl in the coma state lying in her bed. The book plays with the juxtaposition of light and shade, mirrors and imaging and reality and dreams. It's poetically written and the characters complex enough to get your teeth into, even in the short time Murakami allows us access into their lives.