Books like Never Let Me Go

01

The Remains of the Day

Kazuo Ishiguro · Literary fiction

Kazuo Ishiguro's 1989 Booker Prize-winning novel is narrated by Stevens, an aging English butler who has devoted his life to Darlington Hall — and to his employer, Lord Darlington, who turned out to have fascist sympathies in the 1930s.

A kindred literary fiction read.

02

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Atul Gawande · Health

Being Mortal is Atul Gawande's investigation into why modern medicine is so bad at helping people die well.

A kindred literary fiction read.

03

Man's Search for Meaning

Viktor E. Frankl · Psychology

Man's Search for Meaning is Viktor Frankl's account of his years as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and the psychological theory he developed from that experience.

A kindred literary fiction read.

04

When Breath Becomes Air

Paul Kalanithi · Memoir

When Breath Becomes Air is Paul Kalanithi's account of his life before and after being diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer at 36, while completing his residency in neurosurgery at Stanford.

A kindred literary fiction read.

05

The Year of Magical Thinking

Joan Didion · Memoir

Joan Didion's account of the year following the sudden death of her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, is the most rigorous and unflinching memoir of grief in American literature.

A kindred literary fiction read.

06

Kafka on the Shore

Haruki Murakami · Literary fiction

Kafka on the Shore runs two parallel narratives that eventually, obliquely, converge.

Both dig into memory and loss.

07

Station Eleven

Emily St. John Mandel · Literary fiction

Station Eleven begins with an actor dying of a heart attack onstage during a production of King Lear in Toronto.

Both dig into memory and loss.

08

The Cherry Orchard

Anton Chekhov · Literary fiction

The Cherry Orchard is Chekhov's final play, first performed in Moscow in 1904, months before his death.

Both dig into memory and loss.

09

Flowers for Algernon

Daniel Keyes · Science fiction

Flowers for Algernon is narrated through progress reports written by Charlie Gordon, a 32-year-old man with an intellectual disability who becomes the first human subject in an experimental surgery designed to dramatically increase intelligence.

Both dig into memory and loss.

10

The Thursday Murder Club

Richard Osman · Mystery

The Thursday Murder Club is set in Coopers Chase, an upscale English retirement village, where four residents — Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron — meet weekly to examine unsolved cold cases from the files of Elizabeth's late-policewoman friend.

Both dig into memory and loss.

11

A Farewell to Arms

Ernest Hemingway · Literary fiction

A Farewell to Arms is set during the First World War in northern Italy and follows Frederic Henry, an American serving as a lieutenant in the Italian ambulance corps, who falls in love with Catherine Barkley, a British nurse.

A kindred literary fiction read.

12

A Fine Balance

Rohinton Mistry · Literary fiction

A Fine Balance is set in an unnamed Indian city during Indira Gandhi's Emergency of 1975–1977, a period of suspended democracy, forced sterilization, and slum clearances that is barely taught in the West and barely taught in India.

A kindred literary fiction read.