Fans of novelist Haruki Murakami again lined up at bookstores around Japan on Friday, eager as always to get their hands on a copy of his latest book.

Some stores opened as early as midnight to accommodate hardcore fans, often called Harukists, who reportedly arrived well before then and counted down the minutes until the book became available.

The latest work by Mr. Murakami, considered by many a strong candidate for a Nobel Prize, is a collection of five short stories previously published in magazines and one newly written one.

The book's Japanese title is "Onna no Inai Otokotachi," which translates into English as "Men Without Women," the title of an early story collection by Ernest Hemingway. But Mr. Murakami writes in the preface that such a translation wouldn't quite accurately render what he intended.

An official English-language title hasn't been chosen, said Tomoya Tanimura, a spokesman for publisher Bungeishunju Ltd.

The book had a prerelease print run of 300,000 copies, Mr. Tanimura said. "We initially printed 200,000 copies, but upon receiving the pre-orders we decided to add 100,000 more," he said.

"Onna no Inai Otokotachi" is the first book by Mr. Murakami since last April's novel "Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage." It is his first collection of short stories since "Tokyo Kitanshu" was released in 2005.

One of the stories in the new, 285-page book is "Drive My Car," which generated a minor controversy when it first appeared in the December issue of Bungeishunju magazine. In the story, the town of Nakatombetsu in Hokkaido was described as the kind of place where people "flip out a lit cigarette from their car." The people of Nakatombetsu protested, saying the town had been unfairly portrayed.

Mr. Murakami released a statement in February saying he would change the name when the story was published in book form.

Its new name? Kamijunitaki, which has no real-life namesake in Japan.