Read it in the Green Room

Klara and the Sun

Kazuo Ishiguro

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group · 2021

  • atmosphereHushed, haunting near future
  • writingSoft, quiet prose
  • paceSlow, organic unfolding

An Artificial Friend watches the world from a shop window, then from a family’s home, and tells us what she sees. A gentle way into Ishiguro for readers curious about how a machine might understand love and loneliness.

Beta invites go out in waitlist order. One devlog email a month, at most — or just read the devlog.

The Green Room

Backstage of Klara and the Sun.

Walk in mid-chapter. The people of the book are there, as themselves, knowing what they know so far — and nothing else. Ask them anything. They have read exactly as far as you have.

A moment in the Green Room

Klara and the Sun · Kazuo Ishiguro

The narrator

Of Klara and the Sun, as they are at your reading place

You

What happens next?

The narrator

“I can only tell you what you have read. Past your page there is nothing yet — not for you, and not for me. Turn it, and come back.”

Their knowledge stops where your reading does.

Illustrative conversation. The app answers from the passages you have read.

Who is in the room

Anyone who has walked on by your page.

The cast

Any character who has appeared so far. Someone who hasn’t walked on yet isn’t in the room. That’s not a limitation; that’s the point.

The narrator

The voice telling you the story, as far as it has told it.

The author

As the book presents them — the mind behind the pages you have read, not a biography.

The book itself

Ask what it is doing to you so far. It answers from its own pages, up to yours.

Before you go in

What critics and prize juries said.

Editorial synthesis

Kirkus Reviews called it a haunting fable told in hushed tones, with much of the world left veiled, and placed it alongside Never Let Me Go. The Philadelphia Inquirer found a poignant meditation on love and loneliness in soft, quiet prose. Reviews agree on its gentleness and its questions about whether a machine can embody a human spirit.

Drawn from Kirkus Reviews, The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Recognition

How it stays unspoiled

Nothing past your page exists.

The companion is assembled from the passages you have read and only those. A character who knows the ending is no one worth talking to, so there is no override — not behind a setting, not behind a confirmation. Your position is the wall.

You are here

Get the book

One ebook. Yours.

US$12.99ebook · eBooks.com

Buy the ebook once, read it in Green Room — or in any reader you already use.

Get the ebook at eBooks.com

Reading, narration and Green Room compatibility not yet verified for the retailer edition.

The cast has been waiting for you.

Join the waitlist — beta invites go out in order, and the devlog keeps you honest company until then.