Award-Winning Books of 2017

British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro is this year's recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature. The prize is given to an author for a life's work, which in Ishiguro's case includes masterpiece like The Remains of the Day, The Buried Giant and The Unconsoled. In each, he proves himself the master of exposing the tensions and dramas that lurk under polite surfaces—perhaps most poignantly in his 2005 masterpiece, Never Let Me Go, which follows a handful of young students through to adulthood. The characters seem to be going through all the familiar experiences of adolescence, competing for attention from their teachers and peers, longing for affection but unsure how to get it. But Ishiguro adds a layer of mystery over their lives: What does it mean to be a "carer," as the narrator refers to herself, or to make "donations," as the students are told they're destined to do? As the reader discovers, nothing is as it seems.