Kazuo Ishiguro is a master of making his readers question the reliability of his narrators.
Klara—a robot companion to a little girl—seems sensible enough. She misses nothing and has an eye for details. But as the story unfolds, we start to realize Klara is seriously misguided and misinformed about how the human world works.
This book was heartbreaking. You can’t help but feel for Klara, who struggles to fit into a world where she is no more than a product made for the enjoyment of humans. Klara proves that robots can be so much more than machines and that their impact on our lives long outlives their usefulness.
*The #1 Sunday Times Bestseller* *Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2021* *A Barack Obama Summer Reading Pick*
'A delicate, haunting story' The Washington Post 'This is a novel for fans of Never Let Me Go . . . tender, touching and true.' The Times
'The Sun always has ways to reach us.'
From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behaviour of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges…
I came across this book quite by accident. It tells the journey of several misfit characters in an unrecognizable future where humans can transcend their human forms and where those who desire it can spend their entire lives in the virtual world.
All of the characters in this story are searching for something, and none of them wants any help from anybody else. But they are thrown together by fate only to discover that they need each other after all.
This is by far the best indie book I’ve ever read, and I hope you’ll take a chance on it too.
Although it is not science fiction like my other two picks, it makes the top three list for its sheer humanity. The book is told as a series of vignettes, each from the perspective of a different character loosely affiliated with the kidnapping of two young girls in a remote part of Russia.
The mystery of what happened to the girls is secondary to the exploration of how a kidnapping in a small community can impact the psyches of those left behind.
I loved this book for its well-drawn characters and deep insight. And it all comes together in the end in a way that makes the reader feel like the journey was worth every minute.
One of The New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year
National Book Award Finalist Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize Finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize Finalist for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award
Spellbinding, moving--evoking a fascinating region on the other side of the world--this suspenseful and haunting story announces the debut of a profoundly gifted writer.
One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the Kamchatka peninsula at the northeastern edge…
Vanderough University prepares its graduates for life on Mars. Herbert Hoover Palminteri enrolls at VU with the hope of joining the Martian colony in 2044 as a member of its esteemed engineer corps. But then Herbert is tapped to join a notorious secret society: The Order of the Scepter & Gavel. As a new pledge, Herbert has to prove himself in a series of dangerous initiation rites, even if it means risking his life and the lives of his friends.
Many years later, when Herbert thinks the scandals of his youth are finally dead and buried, a murder occurs in the Martian colony, and Herbert starts to suspect it is linked to the secret Order of the Scepter & Gavel of his past.
