Pinball, 1973 (Brief Encounters)

A nostalgic, jazz-soaked love-letter to a youth spent in pursuit of simple pleasures, from the Japan's most celebrated contemporary storyteller, Haruki Murakami

Haunted by memories of a doomed love affair, and living in something of a strange hiatus in Tokyo, Pinball, 1973's narrator finds himself dreaming of the days he used to wile away playing pinball in J's Bar. Until one day he embarks on a quest: to find the exact model of pinball machine he played years earlier - the infamous three-flipper Spaceship.

BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days