In this sublime story cycle, Kazuo Ishiguro explores love, music, and the passage of time. This quintet ranges from Italian piazzas to the Malvern Hills, a London flat to the “hush-hush floor” of an exclusive Hollywood hotel. Along the way we meet young dreamers, café musicians, and faded stars, all at some moment of reckoning.

Gentle, intimate and witty, Nocturnes is underscored by a haunting theme: The struggle to restoke life’s romance, even as relationships flounder and youthful hopes recede.