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Never Let Me Go

I was a quarter of the way into Imperial Life in the Emerald City, a half first-person, half journalistic account of the author's time spent in the Green Zone in Baghdad. It's a good book & well written, but after reading Rise of the Vulcans, Fiasco and State of Denial in the last few months I feel like I'm suffering from Baghdad-burnout.

I switched to Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro and am already three quarters way through it. Brilliant book, gently surreal the way intensely visual dreams are. I won't spoil it by going into the plot, but the way Ishiguro slowly reveals layers of background behind the shared secrets of the characters' lives is really masterful.

I don't want to seem insensitive by grouping Ishiguro together with the only other Japanese author whose stories I've read obsessively, but the surreal-yet-mundane plotline and simple descriptive style remind me a lot of Haruki Murakami.

We all need a little fiction in our lives, days like these.