The Remains of the Day

50 Books for 50 years

Powell's anniversary list: 1971-2021

A perfect character study, this novel depicts Stevens at the end of his long career as a butler in postwar England. As he reflects on his service, he begins to understand things to which he was once oblivious. What else has he overlooked in his life? Ishiguro absolutely nails this exquisite study of the reckoning of a life. Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com

Kazuo Ishiguro, the Nobel Prize-winning British author is one of the most celebrated writers of our time. Of his long list of novels, Booker Award-winning The Remains of the Day, published in 1989, stands out as one of the most highly regarded books of the past 50 years. In The Remains of the Day, Stevens, a dignified English butler at Darlington Hall, evaluates his life and considers how for decades he has been of service to others, supporting their lifestyles and fancies, while not being true to his desires and wishes. As the leadership of Darlington Hall changes to an American owner, Stevens has the opportunity to embark on a journey that changes his life, one in which he is able to reconnect with a lost love and come to terms with his regrets. Ishiguro offers us an amazing gift of humanity through Stevens’s story. Recommended By Kim S., Powells.com

The Remains of the Day is a profoundly compelling portrait of the perfect English butler and of his fading, insular world in postwar England. At the end of his three decades of service at Darlington Hall, Stevens embarks on a country drive, during which he looks back over his career to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving "a great gentleman." But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington's "greatness" and graver doubts about his own faith in the man he served.

"The novel rests firmly on the narrative sophistication and flawless control of tone...of a most impressive novelist." Julian Barnes

"Brilliant...a story both beautiful and cruel." Salman Rushdie

"A perfect novel. I couldn't put it down." Ann Beattie

"A virtuoso performance...put on with dazzling daring and aplomb." The New York Review of Books

"Brilliant and quietly devastating." Newsweek

"An intricate and dazzling novel." The New York Times

"One of the best books of the decade." The Boston Globe

"One of the best books of the year." The New York Times Book Review

"[T]he novel persuasively implicates a broader section of the ruling class in the rise of fascism while emphasizing the complicity of a huge army of subordinates that led ultimately to the Holocaust." Geoff Dyer, New Statesman & Society

Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954 and moved to Britain at the age of five. He is the author of five novels, including The Remains of the Day, an international bestseller that won the Booker Prize and was adapted into an award-winning film. Ishiguro's work has been translated into twenty-eight languages. In 1995, he received an Order of the British Empire for service to literature, and in 1998 was named a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.