For me the best two books of the century so far are Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials (really three novels but who cares?) and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, which should have won The Booker Prize in 2005. I had the pleasure of turning on my then 89 year old bed ridden Mum to it - she absolutely loved it. Well, his first novel since then, The Buried Giant, comes out next month. There's a good interview with him in today's Guardian (Saturday).

I'll be watching Mark Lawson interviewing Kazuo on BBC4 tonight (Sunday).

Fascinating show; Kazuo used to be a singer/songwriter and learned his craft alongside Ian McEwan!