A modern classic made famous in the movie with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. The book is so nice to read after having watched the movie. :-)

I received this book from Catlover during a very nice dinner, our mini-meeting in Brussels. Urdavik also attended.

Over Summer, both Mrs guitarrix and I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is so well-written and the tension is built up in such a clever way!

Here's a quote: I believe one may begin to distinguish what it is that separates a ‘great’ butler from a merely competent one. We may now understand better, too, why my father was so fond of the story of the butler who failed to panic on discovering a tiger under the dining table; it was because he knew instinctively that somewhere in this story lay the kernel of what true ‘dignity’ is. And let me now posit this: ‘dignity’ has to do crucially with a butler’s ability not to abandon the professional being he inhabits. Lesser butlers will abandon their professional being for the private one at the least provocation. For such persons, being a butler is like playing some pantomime role; a small push, a slight stumble, and the façade will drop off to reveal the actor underneath. The great butlers are great by virtue of their ability to inhabit their professional role and inhabit it to the utmost; they will not be shaken out by external events, however surprising, alarming or vexing. They wear their professionalism as a decent gentleman will wear his suit: he will not let ruffians or circumstances tear it off him in the public gaze; he will discard it when, and only when, he wills to do so, and this will invariably be when he is entirely alone. It is, as I say, a matter of ‘dignity’.

Here's the review by Salman Rushdie for the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/17/rereading-remains-day-salman-rushdie
(Warning: the review contains a number of spoilers)