Poll

"Hailsham seems like a pleasant English boarding school, far from the influences of the city. Its students are well tended and supported, trained in art and literature, and become just the sort of people the world wants them to be. But, curiously, they are taught nothing of the outside world and are allowed little contact with it.

Within the grounds of Hailsham, Kathy grows from schoolgirl to young woman, but it’s only when she and her friends Ruth and Tommy leave the safe grounds of the school (as they always knew they would) that they realize the full truth of what Hailsham is.

Never Let Me Go breaks through the boundaries of the literary novel. It is a gripping mystery, a beautiful love story, and also a scathing critique of human arrogance and a moral examination of how we treat the vulnerable and different in our society. In exploring the themes of memory and the impact of the past, Ishiguro takes on the idea of a possible future to create his most moving and powerful book to date."

"Survivor, Warrior, Leader ... And Humanity’s Last Chance

Deep within the remnants of the United States, Lyla Richards oversees a camp of two hundred survivors. In a world where living is an everyday struggle and only through banding together can people survive, the arrival of the Unwelcome only made her job harder.

Riley Quinn and Miles Jones have been raised by Lyla for the last five years. They are also one of the cursed: the children between the ages of thirteen and eighteen whom the Unwelcome kill on sight. No questions, no pleas, just death. Protecting one another and the people of their camp is ingrained in all of them.

But now, each of them faces increased danger as the reason why the cursed have been targeted by the Unwelcome slowly comes to light. And that truth will shock them to their core.

And time is running out. Not just for the cursed, who are being hunted down by the Unwelcome. Not just for Lyla and her family who will face their greatest challenge yet but for all of humanity.

The world changed radically thirty-five years ago. But today, humanity's very existence is on the line. And the fight has begun that will ensure its future . . . or its annihilation."

"An old man, James Howard Smith, walks along deserted railway tracks, long since unused and overgrown; beside him a young, feral boy helps him along. It has been 60 years since the great Red Death wiped out mankind, and the handful of survivors from all walks of life have established their own civilization and their own hierarchy in a savage world. Art, science, and all learning has been lost, and the young descendants of the healthy know nothing of the world that was—nothing but myths and make-believe. The old man is the only one who can convey the wonders of that bygone age, and the horrors of the plague that brought about its end. What future lies in store for the remnants of mankind can only be surmised—their ignorance, barbarity, and ruthlessness the only hopes they have?'"

"Do you want to live forever? the Travellers asked humanity, and only one in ten thousand said no. Their ship had been in orbit around the earth for a year, but their only communication came one night via an enigmatic dream of immortality. And the next day everything was changed. Most of the world prepared to put away their earthly lives as children put away their toys. And the few who remained fully human began to know fear."