Kazuo Ishiguro

"From her place in the store that sells artificial friends, Klara--an artificial friend with outstanding observational qualities -- watches carefully the behavior 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 that her circumstances may change forever, Klara she is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans. In this luminous...

"The Romans have long since departed, and Britian is steadily declining into ruin. But, at least, the wars that once ravaged the country have ceased. Axl and Beatrice, a couple of elderly Britons, decide that now is the time, finally, for them set off across this troubled land of mist and rain to find the son they have not seen for years, the son they can scarcely remember"--Dust jacket.

"Christopher Banks, an English boy born in early-20th-century Shanghai, is orphaned at age nine when both his mother and father disappear under suspicious circumstances. He grows up to become a renowned detective, and more than 20 years later, returns to Shanghai to solve the mystery of the disappearances."

One of the most celebrated writers of our time gives us his first cycle of short fiction: five brilliantly etched, interconnected stories in which music is a vivid and essential character. Follow the struggles of a once-popular singer desperate for a comeback, a songwriter who is unwittingly involved in a failing marriage, and a jazz musician who wrongly believes that plastic surgery will secure his career.

"Masuji Ono saw misery in his homeland and became unwilling to spend his skills solely in the celebration of physical beauty. Instead, he envisioned a strong and powerful nation of the future, and he put his painting to work in the service of the movement that led Japan into World War II. Now, as the mature Masuji Ono struggles through the spiritual wreckage of that war, his memories of the "floating world" of his youth, full of pleasure and promise,...

The story of blind devotion and repressed love between a fanatically proper butler and a high-spirited, strong-minded young housekeeper employed by a British lord who is unwittingly a Nazi dupe.

The story of an ordinary man, reduced by years of oppressive office routine to a shadow existence, who at the eleventh hour makes a supreme effort to turn his dull life into something wonderful.

The remains of the day : The story of blind devotion and repressed love between a fanatically proper butler and a high-spirited, strong-minded young housekeeper employed by a British lord who is unwittingly a Nazi dupe. Sense and sensibility: Tells of the Dashwood sisters, sensible Elinor and passionate Marianne, whose chances at marriage seem doomed by their family's sudden loss of fortune.