I bought this book from the Spitalfield Market as I visited London last week.

Amazon Editorial Review:


"One of the most celebrated writers of our time gives us his first cycle of short fiction: five brilliantly etched, interconnected stories in which music is a vivid and essential character.

A once-popular singer, desperate to make a comeback, turning from the one certainty in his life . . . A man whose unerring taste in music is the only thing his closest friends value in him . . . A struggling singer-songwriter unwittingly involved in the failing marriage of a couple he’s only just met . . . A gifted, underappreciated jazz musician who lets himself believe that plastic surgery will help his career . . . A young cellist whose tutor promises to “unwrap” his talent . . .

Passion or necessity—or the often uneasy combination of the two—determines the place of music in each of these lives. And, in one way or another, music delivers each of them to a moment of reckoning: sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, sometimes just eluding their grasp.

An exploration of love, need, and the ineluctable force of the past, Nocturnes reveals these individuals to us with extraordinary precision and subtlety, and with the arresting psychological and emotional detail that has marked all of Kazuo Ishiguro’s acclaimed works of fiction."

I really enjoyed these stories, although the basic tone in these stories was somehow melancholic. Music makes an interesting interconnection between the separate stories. I liked the atmosphere of this fiction!

This book will travel to the next reader as a wishlist surprise. Happy Holidays!

Thank you lukutuoli for this book! A very thoughtful surprise along with the tea and postcard made for a delighted bookcrosser this afternoon! Happy HGG, I am so happy, thanks again!