Our November Book - Chapters & Chai Book Club

Our November Book - Chapters & Chai Book Club

We only have two book club books until the end of the year - and next up on our list is ‘Never Let Me Go’ by Kazuo Ishiguro.

This book has been on my personal TBR for ten years, since it was on the curriculum for my English Literature & Language class. I didn’t get round to it at the time, and it’s been staring at me from my shelf ever since - but it’s finally getting its turn, and I’m really looking forward to reading it with you!

About Never Let Me Go
Never Let Me Go is a 2005 science fiction novel by the British author Kazuo Ishiguro. It was shortlisted for the 2005 Man Booker Prize, for the 2006 Arthur C. Clarke Award and the 2005 National Book Critics Circle Award. Time magazine named it the best novel of 2005. It was adapted for film in 2010.

Synopsis
As a child, Kathy – now thirty-one years old – lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory.

And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fueled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham. She describes happy scenes of boys and girls growing up together, unperturbed – even comforted – by their isolation. But she describes other scenes as well: of discord and misunderstanding that hint at a dark secret behind Hailsham's nurturing facade. With the dawning clarity of hindsight, the three friends are compelled to face the truth about their childhood – and about their lives now.

About Kazuo Ishiguro - from Penguin Random House
Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954 and moved to Britain at the age of five. His works of fiction have earned him many honours around the world, including the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Booker Prize. 

His books have been translated into over fifty languages and The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go were both made into acclaimed films. He received a knighthood in 2018 for Services to Literature. He also holds the decorations of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star from Japan. 

His most recent novel, Klara and the Sun was a number one Sunday Times bestseller in both hardback and paperback, published in 2021.

Ishiguro also works occasionally as a screenwriter. His screenplay for the 2022 film Living received Academy Award (Oscar) and BAFTA nominations. Cinema adaptations of Klara and the Sun and A Pale View of Hills are due for release in 2025.

I can’t wait to read this one and hear your thoughts on it at our November book club! Share your thoughts with us on Instagram, and tag @chaptersandchai_bookclub

Happy reading!
Keeley