"The Unconsoled" by Kazuo Ishiguro (1995)

"'I do hope I'm not intruding,' he said, 'But when I saw you just now I simply had to come over and say how excited I am you're here.  You see, I'm a pianist myself.  On a strictly amateur basis, I mean.  And, well, I've always admired you terribly.  When father finally got word that you were coming, I was so thrilled.'"

Kazuo Ishiguro is a British novelist born in Japan.  His most famous book is probably The Remains of the Day, which was adapted into a movie starring Anthony Hopkins.  He received the Nobel Prize in Literature last year.

I got 1/4 of the way through The Unconsoled and had to stop.  It seems to be about some guy walking around a city he's unfamiliar with (or is he?), and him having painfully polite conversations with strangers (or are they?).  MAYBE this book gets better, but after 100+ pages of NOTHING HAPPENING I'd had enough and it was time to move on to another book.

I can't tell you much more than that, aside from the fact that this novel merits the term "Kafkaesque" and that its "magical realism" reminded me of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain - another weighty tome I failed to finish.

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"Teacher Man" and "Angela's Ashes" by Frank McCourt (2005 and 1996)
"The Clan of the Cave Bear" by Jean M. Auel (1980)