The Remains of the Day
An aging English butler reflects on a life of dignified service and quiet regret in Ishiguro's Booker Prize-winning novel.
Kazuo Ishiguro’s Booker Prize-winning novel is narrated by Stevens, an English butler who has given his whole life to the service of a great house. On a rare motoring holiday across the countryside, he looks back over decades of duty and begins to sense the cost of his devotion: a love unspoken, a master misjudged, a life not quite lived. Restrained and quietly devastating, it is a meditation on dignity and regret. Jeff Bezos has called it his favorite novel, crediting it with teaching him about life.
Recommended by 3 People
Nathan Harris
I had never encountered a narrator quite like this one, and the elegance of the performance, as orchestrated by Ishiguro, is one I return to often when I wish to see a master at work and recalibrate my own writing.
Ayelet Waldman
How could a list of books about missed chances and self-defeat be complete without The Remains of the Day? Every time I reread this novel, I find myself in a frustrated (yet delighted) fury about how Stevens was so determined to sabotage any chance of happiness that he couldn't even allow himself to imagine a future with Miss Kenton.
Source · May 2026
Jeff Bezos
Book List · March 2017
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