A Tale for the Time Being in Overdue Podcast

Mar 26, 2019 Liz rated it it was amazing

Shelves: adult-fiction, read-harder-challenge-2019

Really enjoyed this story. Great writer. The two stories and worlds were perfectly intertwined.

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Jun 18, 2014 Zach Gray rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, favorites

Best book I've read in a long while. I don't read a lot of fiction partly because it feels like such a risk to invest in a plot and characters that might end up being duds, and I'm risk averse in almost all aspects of life. But it is such a great feeling when the investment pays off.

A Tale for the Time Being was a rare (for me) piece of fiction that was enjoyable from the beginning and did not lose steam. I started the audio while hiking because I needed something to keep my mind off my aching ...more

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Jan 12, 2015 tysephine rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Wow. What a beautiful story.

A woman named Ruth finds a plastic bag on the beach containing a diary and some letters that belonged to a Japanese schoolgirl who may have died in the tsunami. The story unwinds in a dual narrative as we follow Ruth discovering what became of Naoko after her family moved back to Japan.

The story is so complex and the way Ozeki uses Naoko's family history to keep the story moving is riveting. At times, it was very hard to put down. I needed to know what happened with ...more

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Feb 06, 2018 Camille24 (camilleisreading) rated it it was amazing

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I love long novels concentrated around found items -- old letters, secret histories, forgotten diaries -- and the revelation of secrets. This book has that in spades, but it also has humor, quantum physics, suicide, Zen Buddhism, and a Tokyo sex cafe.

On a remote island in the Pacific Northwest, Ruth finds a freezer bag containing a diary written in Japanese, letters written in French, and an old wristwatch, washed up on the beach. The diary belongs to a teenager named Naoko, who says she intends I love long novels concentrated around found items -- old letters, secret histories, forgotten diaries -- and the revelation of secrets. This book has that in spades, but it also has humor, quantum physics, suicide, Zen Buddhism, and a Tokyo sex cafe.

On a remote island in the Pacific Northwest, Ruth finds a freezer bag containing a diary written in Japanese, letters written in French, and an old wristwatch, washed up on the beach. The diary belongs to a teenager named Naoko, who says she intends to write down the story of her great-grandmother's amazing life (a 104-year-old Zen Buddhist nun) before Naoko takes her own life. Her story chronicles her family's move from California back to Japan after the dot com bubble bursts and her family's savings are devastated. There, Naoko endures brutal bullying. When her father begins a series of ill-conceived suicide attempts, Naoko's anger towards him grows. A summer spent at her great-grandmother's Zen Buddhist temple teaches her about true loss and forgiveness and strength.

Back in British Columbia, Ruth, a struggling novelist, is slowly reading the diary with her husband Oliver. Enlisting the help of several friends on the tiny island for translations and history, Ruth slowly draws in the community to help unearth the tale. She becomes so obsessed that she begins to perceive the events that are happening in the diary to be unfolding in real time, and even interacts with some of the main players in her dreams. She is certain that she must do something to save Naoko, and her father, before they take their own lives.

I really loved this book. It is unique and spellbinding. Naoko's voice is so distinctive, and I enjoyed learning about Japanese culture from her. It was not lost on me that Ruth and Oliver are the names of the author and her husband; I actually enjoyed that she inserted herself into the tale because it was a very effective narrative device. The revelation of great uncle Haruki, the suicide bomber, and his sacrifice was heartbreaking. Naoko's great-grandma is the best character in the book, and teaches everyone how to be strong in the face of strife. <3 ...more

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Aug 03, 2017 Jardeen added it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own

The quantum physics and sudden magical realism at the end made me knock off a star, but overal a warm and wonderful (and sometimes even educational) read.

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