Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro
List Price:
Our Price: $4.75
You Save: $9.25 (66%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $1.83 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Kazuo IshiguroEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2006-03-14
ISBN: 1400078776
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Never Let Me Go
Book Review: Chilling yet beautiful and moving
Summary: 5 Stars
Having recently read this novel for the second time, I found myself as moved and unnerved upon completing it as I had been the first time I picked it up little over a year ago. For me, 'Never Let Me Go' remains a uniquely beautiful and yet deeply disturbing evocation of the loss of childhood wonder and innocence in the face of a harsh and indifferent world. Truly, this is one of the most remarkable novels published in recent years.
The 31 year old narrator looks back on her childhood at Hailsham in a stripped down matter of speech and with a relevancy and immediacy that evaporates the long and blunting passage between childhood and adulthood and which allows us to see in sharp, chilling contrast what is really lost in that painful transition. From an initial outlook of innocence and confusion at the world and yet hope for whatever meanings and possibilities it might have for each of as individuals, our spirits are gradually worn down to the realities of the world as it is revealed for adults - cold and indifferent, a place where as individuals we matter for little. Not only is it a place where our lives are inevitably destined to be short and mediocre, our increasing knowledge of the world through science seems to show ourselves to have been thrown into an utterly blind and mechanical universe, a place in which even the most fudamental human values of love, altruism and friendship are ultimately no more than bleak evolutionary algorithims, our very souls simply fictions written by our selfish genes.
Many people seem to find this novel difficult to get into. I can only say that it is worth perservering with. In fact, if you can, try to read it in one go, or at least in as few sittings as possible. Your reward might be to rediscover a memory of your childhood self that the passing of time has diminished and eroded, but has not, you will be moved to find, completely destroyed. The genius of Kazuo Ishiguro is not simply to restore something that you thought had forever gone away, but to unnervingly make you question how easily you could ever have let it go.
Literature & Fiction Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in My Favorite Books (So far)
Never Let Me Goby Kazuo Ishiguro
Vintage; Published: 2006-03-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.95
Price in other shops:
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Waoby Junot D?az
Riverhead Trade; Published: 2008-09-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.92
Price in other shops:
The Enchantress of Florence: A Novelby Salman Rushdie
Random House; Published: 2008-05-27; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.62
Price in other shops:
Helpless: A Novelby Barbara Gowdy
Picador; Published: 2008-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.62
Price in other shops:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Timeby Mark Haddon
Vintage; Published: 2004-05-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.43
Price in other shops:
Midnight's Children: A Novelby Salman Rushdie
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2006-04-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.87
Price in other shops:
Everything Is Illuminatedby Jonathan Safran Foer, Penguin
Penguin Books Ltd; Published: 2003-06-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.79
Price in other shops:
The Fountainhead (Centennial Edition Hardcover)by Ayn Rand
Plume; Published: 2005-04-26; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $22.38
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novelby Jonathan Safran Foer
Mariner Books; Published: 2006-04-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.69
Price in other shops:
Kafka on the Shoreby Haruki Murakami
Vintage; Published: 2006-01-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.99
Price in other shops:
The Unconsoledby Kazuo Ishiguro
Vintage; Published: 1996-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.80
Price in other shops:
Oryx and Crakeby Margaret Atwood
Published: 2003-05-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.38
Price in other shops:
An Artist of the Floating Worldby Kazuo Ishiguro
Vintage; Published: 1989-09-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.84
Price in other shops:
When We Were Orphansby Kazuo Ishiguro, Lee John
Published: 2000-09-01; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $5.99
Price in other shops:
On Beautyby Zadie Smith
Penguin Books; Published: 2006-08-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.00
Price in other shops:
The Seaby John Banville
Vintage; Published: 2006-08-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.99
Price in other shops:
Saturdayby Ian McEwan
Anchor; Published: 2006-04-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops:
The Remains of the Dayby Kazuo Ishiguro
Vintage; Published: 1990-09-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.95
Price in other shops: