One of my favorite short story collections for sure. I love his writing. ( )

Ishiguro's stories lack significance and resolution, and his descriptions and characterizations are straightforward and artless. Not bad compared to most of what passes for fiction these days, but I expected more based on my reading of _A Pale View of Hills_. I'm holding out hope for _The Remains of the Day_. ( )

This book of short stories was oddly intriguing to me. In fact, I want to give it five stars because I just really enjoyed the book a lot. But intellectually, I really do not "get" what it is about the book that I liked. I mean if I was a book critic, I think I'd be panning it . . .but I'm not a book critic, and I found these stories engaging and charming.

It's a very quick read with only five stories. The common thread is that each story is ostensibly about music. However, the stories are really about challenges of relationships, especially the balance between pursuing your own dreams and bowing to the needs of others and how those can conflict. I especially loved the second story in which a man enlists his college best friend to save his marriage with unexpected results.

The endings of these stories were not the most satisfying in the world . . .and for that reason alone, I really shouldn't be giving this book as many stars as I am, but I can't seem to help myself. I just liked the author's quiet, subtle style, and in a very short time I really cared about his characters. I hope someone else reads this just to compare notes! ( )

His stories just have a nice flow and are so wonderful to read. ( )

I have been a fan of Ishiguro for many years and I had been curious how he would handle short fiction. Not surprising, he also does this well, but I think the novel form is his best approach. These 5 loosely linked stories are mostly about individuals trying to find their place in the world and music plays a big part of these. Most of these main characters are musicians. Ishiguro seems to have deep understanding of music and how it is made. ( )