Pinball 1973 Now Reprinting
After many years of desperately tapping fingertips together and gazing lustily at the fabled English edition of the 1980 Murakami novel Pinball 1973, fans can now breathe a collective sigh of relief at the latest run of prints now being distributed in online stores across Japan.
I haven’t seen any in actual storefronts yet, but a quick visit to Amazon.co.jp–along with subsequent confusion and a few violently hesitant clicks reminiscent of a film’s time bomb cable-cutting scene–I learned that a twelfth printing of the still-first edition of the book was officially released on December 25, 2009. (They actually started selling the books around the 15th, and I received my copy on the 20th, so take that as you will.)
The book is starting to make its way onto eBay for prices averaging around $30-40 USD. You can actually order it directly from Amazon.co.jp (English is available), but even though the book itself costs 780 yen, overseas shipping is a whopping 3,000 yen, for a grand total around $40 USD. So your best bet for now might be just buying it off of eBay.
