Plot: The hero is an unemployed husband who looks for his wife's missing cat. At least, that's what it looks like on the surface.

Why it's on the list: Murakami's characters seem to travel though time, with out-of-body sexual experiences that are otherworldly.

Excerpt: The mysterious woman on the phone was now mounted atop me and joining her body with mine. She, too, wore Kumiko's dress. She and Creta Kano had traded places without my being aware of it.... I opened my eyes wide and tried to see the face of the woman mounted on top of me, but the room was too dark.

The woman said nothing more. Instead, she began to move her hips in an even more erotically stimulating way. Her soft flesh, itself almost an independent organism, enveloped my erection with a gentle pulling motion. From behind her I heard -- or thought I heard -- the sound of a knob being turned. A white flash went through the darkness. The ice bucket on the table might have shone momentarily in the light from the corridor. Or the flash might have been the glint of a sharp blade. But I couldn't think anymore. There was only one thing I could do: I came.