The Remains of the Day

Stevens is an ideal butler who realises, too late, that he sacrificed everything human for a professional code. The novel is about self-deception, dignity, and the British tendency to mistake repression for composure. Reading it as someone who has also chosen work over many other things lands differently than it does at 20. Ishiguro makes you feel the weight of unlived life without ever announcing it. One of the few novels that gets better the more you have to lose.