Nocturnes

Kazuo Ishiguro's Nocturnes irresistibly reminds the reader of Baudelaire's scathing 'Hypocrite lecteur, mon semblable, mon frère!' in his quintet of short stories in which our knowledge of our fellow human beings never really seems to be tangible nor predictable. The 'cringe factor' is at an entertainingly all-time high in the author's depiction of a gallery of lost souls whose fate oscillates between decadence and revival. A very rewarding and humanistic read.