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A Tale for the Time Being (Paperback)
Staff Reviews
Interweaving the stories of Neo--a sixteen-year-old Japanese girl--and Ruth--a writer living in the San Juan Islands--this is a novel of beauty, melancholy, grief, and hope. (And physics jokes.) This is, quite simply, one of the best books I've ever read.
— BillieMarch 2013 Indie Next List
“Nao, a suicidal Japanese girl, postpones her death as she grows closer to her 104-year-old great-grandmother, a Buddhist nun. Ruth, an American author with writer's block, discovers a diary washed ashore on her remote island in the Pacific Northwest. Ruth becomes obsessed with Nao and her diary, and readers will be drawn in as their stories intertwine. Ozeki's creatively constructed novel, complete with footnotes, Japanese characters, and appendices, will have readers marveling at the leaps in time and connection that bring the two women together in this witty, daring, and thoughtful novel.”
— Cheryl Krocker McKeon, Book Passage, San Francisco, CA