Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall

‘It was our third time playing the Godfather theme since lunch.’
In a sublime story cycle, Kazuo Ishiguro explores ideas of love, music and the passing of time. From the piazzas of Italy to the Malvern Hills, a London flat to the ‘hush-hush floor’ of an exclusive Hollywood hotel, the characters we encounter range from young dreamers to cafe musicians to faded stars, all of them at some moment of reckoning. Gentle, intimate and witty, this quintet is marked by a haunting theme: the struggle to keep alive a sense of life’s romance, even as one gets older, relationships flounder and youthful hopes recede.

Review: NATIONAL BESTSELLERA \”New York Times Notable Book \”\”A fine and moving collection of stories, displaying [Ishiguro’s] unique combination of the sad, the stoic and the consoling. It’s about failure, but it dignifies failure, and with it, the human condition. There is nobody like him.\” – Margaret Drabble, \”The Guardian Books of the Year \”\”Each of these stories is heartbreaking in its own way, but some have moments of great comedy, and they all require a level of attention that, typically, Ishiguro’s writing rewards.\”\”- The Observer\”\”An amusing read, at times very funny…. There are a number of scenes in Nocturnes that are almost worth the price of admission on their own.\” \”- The Globe and Mail\” \”From the Hardcover edition.\”

Author Biography: Kazuo Ishiguro is the author of six novels, A Pale View of Hills, An Artist of the Floating World (shortlisted for the Booker Prize), The Remains of the Day (1989, winner of the Booker Prize), The Unconsoled, When We Were Orphans (2000, shortlisted for the Booker Prize) and Never Let Me Go (2005, shortlisted for the MAN Booker Prize). He received an OBE for Services to Literature in 1995, and the French decoration of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1998.

Format: Paperback
Pages: 240
Imprint: Faber & Faber
Publication date: 18/03/2010