Anyone who bought Kuhaku and is looking for more of that Japan-focused short story goodness should check out Tokyo Fragments. It's a five-story, 206-page tome lovingly translated by Giles Murray (of Breaking into Japanese Literature fame). The book introduces English readers to a new breed of innovative Japanese writers: Ryuji Morita, Tomomo Muramatsu, Mariko Hayashi, Makoto Shiina and Chiya Fujino.

Interestingly (and scarily) enough, the last story, "The Housewife and the Police Box," takes place in the precise nondescript suburb of Tokyo that the title story from Kuhaku is based on. If you read with a keen eye, you'll be able to find a direct connection between a visual in Kuhaku and a passage in "The Housewife."

Although both Kuhaku and Fragments are based on a similar fundamental premise -- short stories about life in Japan -- their contents rarely overlap. If you were especially drawn in by stories such as "San Man Down (Suicide)" or "Blind Alleys" from Kuhaku then the similarly toned first-person narratives of Fragments echoing their Murakami contemporaries (Ryu in Fruits of Shinjuku and Haruki in The Yellow Tent on the Roof) should titillate.

And lastly, if you do pick up a copy of Fragments, I suggest that you remove the cover. The pure white casing with clean, sans-serif violet type is far too elegant to let waste under an otherwise ho-hum photo of the edge of Kabukicho.