Going to pick up a copy later today. It's one of those novels I've been meaning to read for years and never got around to. I saw the film many years ago and can remember very little. It's going to be impossible not to visualise Hopkins and Thompson as the protagonists.

Mr. Stevens, the central character and first-person narrator of The Remains of the Day, is a butler for Mr. Farraday, a wealthy American who has purchased Darlington Hall, the country house that Stevens has worked in for much of his life. The novel opens with Stevens explaining (somewhat disingenuously) that he has accepted an offer from his employer of a few days holiday because he wishes to visit the West Country and persuade Miss Kenton, a former housekeeper, to return to Darlington Hall in order to resolve some problems relating to a “faulty staff plan”

here's April (cat's cradle): http://drownedinsound.com/community/boards/social/4172910