There are perhaps two types of good books: those that have such a cool idea you can't help but know you're going to love them beforehand and those that offer such a simple premise but manage to make it bloom splendidly without you being too sure how. Kazuo Ishiguro has written both kinds: Never Let Me Go is one of the most loudly wrecking great stories, but The Remains of the Day is that quiet child who can secretly calculate three-digit square roots or something. 
 Stevens, a butler who has worked all his life at Darlington Hall, decides to take up on his new boss's suggestion to do a road trip around the English countryside and to go visit an old housekeeper of Darlington Hall. During this trip, he browses his memories of the last thirty years: coincidentally, the years that lead to the Second World War. 
 This is a first person narrative; therefore, Stevens' narration is limited by his own narrow-sightedness - as a reader, you must be very aware of that limitation. Throughout the book, though, his point of view seems to shift progressively, becoming slightly more transparent. 
 This book is a study on the meaning of "dignity". In here you will find a hidden fierce criticism of the idea that regular citizens do not have to be involved in great-scale decisions: you cannot be held by the small picture, whatever you do, you have to be aware of the great picture of world affairs. Or else, it might turn out to be too late. 
 I was lucky enough to be reading this when this The Guardian podcast came out. You should check it, I found it extremely enlightening.