
Klara and the Sun
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Sura Siu
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By:
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Kazuo Ishiguro
About this listen
Long-listed, Booker Prize, 2021
Short-listed, Prometheus Award, 2022
New York Times best seller
Once in a great while, a book comes along that changes our view of the world. This magnificent novel from the Nobel laureate and author of Never Let Me Go is “an intriguing take on how artificial intelligence might play a role in our futures...a poignant meditation on love and loneliness” (The Associated Press).
A Good Morning America Book Club Pick
“What stays with you in Klara and the Sun is the haunting narrative voice - a genuinely innocent, egoless perspective on the strange behavior of humans obsessed and wounded by power, status and fear.” (Booker Prize committee)
Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: What does it mean to love?
©2021 Kazuo Ishiguro (P)2021 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • A BOOKER PRIZE NOMINEE • GOOD MORNING AMERICA Book Club Pick • ONE OF PRESIDENT OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR • ONE OF BILL GATES'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, Time, NPR, Washington Post, Vogue, USA Today, Town & Country, The Guardian, Vulture, and more
“One of the most affecting and profound novels Ishiguro has written….I'll go for broke and call Klara and the Sun a masterpiece that will make you think about life, mortality, the saving grace of love: in short, the all of it.”—Maureen Corrigan, NPR
“A delicate, haunting story, steeped in sorrow and hope.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post
“What stays with you in ‘Klara and the Sun’ is the haunting narrative voice—a genuinely innocent, egoless perspective on the strange behavior of humans obsessed and wounded by power, status and fear.”—Booker Prize committee
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Narration vs performance
- By Marisabel on 10-30-17
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
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Study Guide for Book Clubs: Klara and the Sun
- By: Kathryn Cope
- Narrated by: Virtual Voice
- Length: 3 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Looking to improve your book club discussions? Wish you had time to prepare for your reading group meetings more thoroughly? Then try this essential book club companion. Study Guides for Book Clubs provide all the information you need for your book club meeting. Each easy-to-follow guide gives an accessible, comprehensive overview of a recommended book club read. This useful resource will help you to: Recap on finer plot points Understand themes, characters & literary context Analyse the text in a more effective way Stimulate a lively, dynamic discussion Inside this informative guide to ...
By: Kathryn Cope
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The Wrong Unit
- A Novel
- By: Rob Dircks
- Narrated by: Rob Dircks
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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I don't know what the humans are so cranky about. Their enclosures are large, they ingest over 1,000 calories per day, and they're allowed to mate. Plus, they have me: an Autonomous Servile Unit, housed in a mobile/bipedal chassis. I do my job well: keep the humans healthy and happy.
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Futuristic journey without a single misstep
- By Julie W. Capell on 10-03-16
By: Rob Dircks
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The Unconsoled
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 19 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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From the author of The Remains of the Day, here is a novel that is at once a gripping psychological mystery, a wicked satire of the cult of art, and a poignant character study of a man whose public life has accelerated beyond his control. The setting is a nameless Central European city where Ryder, a renowned pianist, has come to give the most important performance of his life. Instead, he finds himself diverted on a series of cryptic and infuriating errands that nevertheless provide him with vital clues to his own past.
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Torturous trip to nowhere
- By Deborah on 06-30-18
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
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Parasol Against the Axe
- A Novel
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Dorje Swallow
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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For reasons of her own, Hero Tojosoa accepts an invitation she was half expected to decline, and finds herself in Prague on a bachelorette weekend hosted by her estranged friend Sofie. Little does she know she’s arrived in a city with a penchant for playing tricks on the unsuspecting. A book Hero has brought with her seems to be warping her mind: the text changes depending on when it’s being listened to and who’s doing the listening, revealing startling new stories of fictional Praguers past and present.
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A surrealist chocolate box of delights
- By Roxanne Abeln-Taylor on 02-20-25
By: Helen Oyeyemi
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What We Fed to the Manticore
- By: Talia Lakshmi Kolluri
- Narrated by: Nikki Massoud, Neil Shah
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Through nine emotionally vivid stories, all narrated from animal perspectives portraying the complexity of their lives and relationships, WHAT WE FED TO THE MANTICORE explores themes of environmentalism, conservation, identity, belonging, loss, and family with resounding heart and deep tenderness, and ultimately places the listener under the rich canopy of the tree of life.
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A Children's Bible
- By: Lydia Millet
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 5 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Contemptuous of their parents, who pass their days in a stupor of liquor, drugs, and sex, the children feel neglected and suffocated at the same time. When a destructive storm descends on the summer estate, the group's ringleaders - including Eve, who narrates the story - decide to run away, leading the younger ones on a dangerous foray into the apocalyptic chaos outside.
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Not sure what to make of this
- By CCC on 10-20-20
By: Lydia Millet
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Staying On
- By: Paul Scott
- Narrated by: Paul Shelley
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Tusker and Lily Smalley stayed on in India. Given the chance to return ‘home’ when Tusker, once a Colonel in the British Army, retired, they chose instead to remain in the small hill town of Pankot, with its eccentric inhabitants and archaic rituals left over from the days of the Empire. Only the tyranny of their imposing landlady threatens to upset the quiet rhythm of their days.
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A Pleasant Meander
- By Ian C Robertson on 09-22-14
By: Paul Scott
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The Girls
- A Novel
- By: Emma Cline
- Narrated by: Cady McClain
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park and is immediately caught by their freedom, their careless dress, their dangerous aura of abandon. Soon Evie is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader.
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I'm not even through the first chapter
- By leelee8888 on 06-14-16
By: Emma Cline
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1Q84
- By: Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin - translator, Philip Gabriel - translator
- Narrated by: Allison Hiroto, Marc Vietor, Mark Boyett
- Length: 46 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.
A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver's enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 - "Q" is for "question mark". A world that bears a question....
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WOW, WOW, WOW.
- By Amanda on 11-06-11
By: Haruki Murakami, and others
Yes, I got that being "lifted" implied some kind of genetic modification which was likely the cause of Josie's unspecified illness. I surmised what might even have been a subtle (intended or otherwise) message that Rick, who hadn't been afforded this "advantage" by his mother, was much more gifted than his friend Josie who showed no special prowess, whereas he appeared to be a boy entrepreneur who would go onto great things.
As I said, an interesting premise, not least when it came to the central theme of what it is that causes us to love. Are we just the sum of our parts, or is there something ineffable within us that causes (in Josie's case) someone to love their mother despite their having put their lives at risk, or at least at risk of permanent exhaustion and illness? Why would Chrissy undertake that again with her second child when she had lost her first to the same illness? Also, I just wasn't convinced by Klara, supposedly an exceptional robot with observational abiities who had such a primitive understanding of the sun - treating "him" in an anthropomorphic way by pleading with him to make Josie better. The way in which Josie's illness was resolved left me confused and unconvinced. Certain other things were never fully explained. I surmised that the teenagers needed to have "interactions" where they met face to face because they were educated remotely. But why were schools no longer in existence, even though - as we discover later in the story -- colleges are?
But, overall, the reason why I have given this book only three stars (and four for Ms. Siu's excellent narration) is because I felt no emotion at the end. Usually I'll shed a tear for a favoured character or cheer for a much anticipated resolution, but in this case -- nothing. As such, I suppose I am no different to the characters in the book. Josie goes off to college without a second-thought for her long-time AF; the mother seems to feel no great connection to a being that would have sacrificed anything for her human friend. Mr. Capaldi's interest in Klara is only to tinker inside her "black box" to learn the secrets of these supposedly exceptional robots. So Klara is left to wind down with no one to speak to other than the occasional building worker and "Manager" who has set out to find her former AFs. What should have been a poignant ending just left me thinking, oh well, I at least finished the book, even though at times I felt disinclined to persevere, especially when it came to the superfluous character of Miss Helen and her strange relationship with Vance.
A friend has loaned me another book of Mr. Ishiguro's, assuring me it's one of his best. With all due respect, I would conclude that Klara and the Sun does not fit into that category.
Short story masquerading as a novel?
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Beautiful, charming, and endearing little mystery
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I keep thinking about this one...
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What is perhaps most striking for me is that in each of his works their is moral center. In the hands of a less skilled author this could be ham-fisted and pedantic. Not so with Ishiguro. If you are willing, you will get a chance to think about the great moral issues: what is true, what is good/evil, right/wrong. I re
Ishiguro at his best!
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An inventive masterpiece
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So what it boiled down to was a fairly straightforward story of a near-distant world in which artificial intelligence is capable of independent thought and even the concept of spirituality (in this case, the Sun is god). These are certainly interesting concepts to explore, but there just wasn’t enough plot-wise to keep the reader engaged. We feel bad for Klara, but not to any significant degree to where we’re truly invested in her journey. There are moments of beauty, but not enough to keep the story interesting.
Sara Siu was an excellent narrator, however, and so I’m rating this a little higher than I wanted to. I can’t imagine having been able to finish an actual physical copy of this book, so if this had any silver lining, it was that Siu’s performance was just enough to make me want to see it through. Overall though, I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone.
Trite, slow and downright underwhelming
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Very well-written.
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mesmerizing story, from beginning to end
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Enjoyable listen
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interioriy
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