My first book of 2016 could prove to my least predictable choice of the year.  I loathe fantasy fiction, so why did I choose as my first book a novel that features ogres, she-devils, and Sir Gawain (yes, King Arthur’s faithful sidekick)?  Simple.  It’s by Kazuo Ishiguro, one of my favorite living novelists, and I was intrigued that he should use Britain in the early post-Roman era as the setting for his newest book.

It’s a strange, simple tale of two protagonists, Axl and his wife, Beatrice.  They travel from their home to find their grown son and along the way encounter hostile Saxons, dangerous ogres, and the aging Sir Gawain.  Little happens very slowly, but it’s the eerie atmosphere that stayed with me long after I closed the book that makes The Buried Giant so distinctive.  It’s a book about the importance of memory and the dangers of forgetting, and about how the creation of a sustainable future (whether personal or political) is impossible if memories are lost.

A great novel?  No.  Ishiguro’s best?  Certainly not.  But it’s a deceivingly simple, unsettling, and memorable story.