Never Let Me Go
By Kazuo Ishiguro
Why this book?
This is one of the books that made me want to become a writer of “speculative” novels. It’s a beautifully engrossing alternate history, set in what appears to be a remote English boarding school. There we meet young people who have been told they have a special destiny, a special place in the world—but not what that destiny is. As his story unfolds, Ishiguro asks us to think about how far human beings might be willing to go to save themselves, what it actually means to be human, and how something as beautiful as empathy and caring can be used, if we aren’t careful, to serve its exact opposite. It’s stayed with me over the years not only for these questions and for its elegant writing, but because it reminds me how easily something precious—love, or even storytelling itself—can, in the wrong hands, become a weapon.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.