"Considered by many to be Japan’s most popular and influential author, Murakami tells the story of a woman who ignores conventional wisdom by embracing more than two weeks of sleeplessness (with the aid of Anna Karenina). Composed in Dante types by Michael and Winifred Bixler of Skaneateles, New York, the fifty-six pages of Sleep have been printed at Kat Ran Press on handmade Twinrocker papers. The four etchings by John Gibson, whose paintings may be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Museum at the Rhode Island School of Design (among others), have been printed by Peter Pettengill and his exemplary staff at Wingate Studio in Hinsdale, New Hampshire. The entire edition has been carefully bound in full leather and boxed by Claudia Cohen at her Seattle, Washington, bindery."

Of course, it's $1500, and limited to 46 copies (not including the fifteen not available at any price).

At a much lesser cost, however, are limited slipcased copies of Kafka On the Shore, Murakami's newly translated novel. Limited to a thousand, they're about a hundred and fifty on ebay. That's about the only place anyone not in the UK is going to find them at a competitive price, mind, since they were apparently only able to be purchased in person at selected Waterstone's.* It's somewhat more if you manage to find a copy signed by Murakami in Japanese.

What I want, however, is a copy of the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle with the twenty thousand words that were cut out put back in. Why isn't anyone doing this? Assuming it wasn't done for some ridiculous price (see fifteen hundred bucks for a short story as example), I'd be all over that.

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* Isn't that the place that fired a guy for blogging? Anyhow, that said, I'm sure you can snag a copy from an online UK store, somewhere. For example, try here. It's only a hundred pounds...

** And this is Murakami's new webpage. Lots of people like it, but I reckon it's kinda ugly.