The Remains of the Day

The novel's narrator, Stevens, is a perfect English butler who tries to give his narrow existence form and meaning through the self-effacing, almost mystical practice of his profession. In a career that spans the second World War, Stevens is oblivious of the real life that goes on around him -- oblivious, for instance, of the fact that his aristocrat employer is a Nazi sympathizer. Still, there are even larger matters at stake in this heartbreaking, pitch-perfect novel -- namely, Stevens' own ability to allow some bit of life-affirming love into his tightly repressed existence.

• Nights at the Circus
• The Buddha of Suburbia
• Never Let Me Go
• Pastoralia
• An Artist of the Floating World
• When We Were Orphans: A Novel
• The Blue Castle
• The Buried Giant (Vintage International)
• White Teeth: A Novel
• A Pale View of Hills