As a young boy, Kazuo Ishiguro uncovered Sherlock Holmes stories in the local library. His subsequent writing journey has been nothing short of adventurous––revealing extraordinary range, playing with genres like detective fiction (When We Were Orphans), science fiction (Never Let Me Go) and fantasy (The Buried Giant) and tackling big themes like the fallibility of memory, mortality, war and love. 

In October, Gramercy’s monthly book club has selected My Life with Bob as a catalyst to talk about books that people can’t live without. To a handful of writers, I asked this question:  What book has stuck with you over the years—one that may have shaped you or changed your life in some way? Here’s what they told me.

Former Columbus Dispatch TV critic, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and lauded novelist Julia Keller will kick off our month of events on September 6, at 7pm with her latest mystery, Fast Falls The Night. The novel, based on a true event, covers a series of drug overdoses that take place over a single 24-hour period in a West Virginia town.

As the author of a historical novel, Tasa's Song, one question from readers always comes up: What was real and what was imagined? As bestselling historical novelist Hilary Mantel said, “History, and science too, help put our small lives in context. But if we want to meet the dead looking alive, we turn to art.”

When I decided to open a bookstore, I wanted to have a well-curated music section. I wanted to include novels where any kind of music is an integral part of the story, like Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad and Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity. But also books about music, memoirs by musicians, and books about songwriting.