This week literary heavyweight Kazuo Ishiguro is back with his first novel since he won the Nobel Prize in 2017.
As is typical for one of the biggest names in English prose, it is an ambitious and surprising project yet one which remains unostentatious with perfectly judged prose.
Meanwhile celebrity Louise Redknapp's hot memoir is found to be warm-hearted, honest and relatable.
And the diaries of Henry ‘Chips’ Channon, an American-born British Conservative politician who 'knew everyone' between the two World Wars are a key historical record - if a little sullying.
Klara And The Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro
Faber, £20
Which of these is more difficult: for a robot to write a book that reads as if it was written by a human, or for a human to write a book that reads as if written by a robot?
We’ll have to wait a bit longer to see how the robots get on – but the author of Never Let Me Go and The Remains Of The Day has attempted the latter task in his new novel, the first since he won the Nobel Prize in 2017.
The narrator is Klara, an “Artificial Friend”: a solar-powered robot designed to be a humanoid doll-turned-servant.
We first meet her in a store in an unnamed American city, hoping a family will take her home to live with them. One day, she establishes a connection with teenager Josie.
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But when Josie fails to return to the store, Klara becomes resigned to remaining on the shelf
for ever.
Eventually, however, Josie comes back after a period of ill health and Klara goes to live with her and her mother.
Initially, Ishiguro teasingly withholds a lot of key information about this version of the not-too-distant future.
But readers gradually learn, along with Klara, about the huge sacrifices people now make to survive and why they have taken such a toll on Josie’s health.
As Klara tries to help Josie get well, the book invites us to think about the moral issues that may face us in years to come. For example, when we can programme robots to think and feel like humans, will we not then have a duty to treat them like humans?
Klara is so engaging a character that most readers will want to believe of her what we want to believe of ourselves – that emotions such as love and loyalty are more than just the sum of our internal wiring.
Ishiguro pulls back from a full exploration of some of the darker issues he raises.
But a story that could easily be unbearably sentimental in another writer’s hands becomes genuinely moving, even beautiful, in Ishiguro’s unostentatious but perfectly judged prose.
By JAKE KERRIDGE
You’ve Got This: And Other Things I Wish I Had Known, by Louise Redknapp
Piatkus, £16.99
Part memoir and part self-help guide, Louise Redknapp’s new book recounts her early days in showbiz, her decision to go solo, her marriage to footballer Jamie Redknapp, her fertility struggles and the birth of her two sons.
Louise’s rise to fame reads like a fairy tale. At 15, she was spotted dancing in a club by a music producer who was launching a new girl band – and, in no time, Eternal had a five-album deal and were mixing with celebrities such as George Michael, Boy George and Take That.
However, despite her seemingly idyllic life, Louise increasingly felt “lonely, anxious and unimportant”.
And while juggling TV and acting jobs with household chores, she knew something was missing. “In trying so hard for so long to be the perfect wife and mother, I’d ended up losing my sense of self,” she writes.
Everything changed when she joined Strictly Come Dancing in 2016. She rekindled her love of performing and realised she couldn’t return to her old life.
She and Jamie split after 19 years of marriage – “for many reasons,” she says – and she began rebuilding her career.
Warm-hearted, honest and relatable, Louise weaves her personal story with the lessons she’s learned about following your passions. Her advice about self-belief, body confidence and moving on after divorce will resonate with many readers.
by EMMA LEE-POTTER
Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries 1918-38, edited by Simon Heffer
Hutchinson, £35
In the Woody Allen movie Zelig, the title character finds himself among the in-crowd of every great event of his age – and the subject of this book, Tory MP Henry ‘Chips’ Channon, was a real-life Zelig.
His diaries begin in the last year of the Great War with Chips in the trenches – he was a Red Cross official – and end with Neville Chamberlain’s appeasing of Hitler and Chips in the Foreign Office.
Between these dates, he was a Special Constable in the General Strike, attended the Berlin Olympics, had the children of Nazi diplomat von Ribbentrop over for a playdate, and was a confidant of Edward and Mrs Simpson during the abdication crisis of 1936.
Chips knew everyone. He played a stripping game (and probably more) with Hollywood screen goddess Tallulah Bankhead, and was “a little in love” with friend Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, eventually wife of George VI and Queen Mother.
For all of his assumed grand Britishness, Chips was American, hailing from Chicago. After a degree at Oxford, Chips – drawn to the bright young things of the British aristocracy – climbed the social heights and did so like a chimp wearing crampons. He was charming, handsome, and utterly Anglophiliac, a real-life Great Gatsby.
Throughout the 1920s, the diary entries begin “Dined with” followed by the name of some socialite. He supped with the Guinness-brewing family, married their Lady Honor and became instantly, madly wealthy. “Our riches are incalculable!” he exclaims to his diary.
He was a snob. Socialists? “Smelly,” he said. His political judgment was dodgy. “The swastika flies over Vienna!” he writes euphorically after the Nazis’ 1938 swallowing of Austria.
This is not the first publication of Chips’ diaries. A 1967 edition was filleted to avoid offence to the living. Well, those living are now dead. So outed in this 1,000-page version are the Queen Mother (“growing fat”), Lady Astor (“unbalanced mentally”), and Lady Diana Cooper (“slept with half of London”).
The diaries are fascinating and sometimes a key historical record. And the man could write.
Still, I closed the covers with that sullied feeling you get at 11pm, after watching TV schlock for hours, and thinking a breath of fresh air would be nice.
by JOHN LEWIS-STEMPEL
Join the Mirror Book Club
We have a new Mirror Book Club pick – Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud.
The recent winner of the Costa First Novel Award, it tells the tale of irrepressible Betty, her shy son Solo and their lodger Mr Chetan.
Their happy home keeps them safe from an increasingly dangerous world – until a glass of rum, a heart-to-heart and a terrible truth explodes the family unit.
- Join us at facebook.com/groups/mirrorbookclub where we will give away 20 copies to members!
