Fellowship of the Worms Announcement: A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

July 31, 2015 Book Club 10

Howdy Bookworms!

It’s been far too long since we read a book together, I think. Who’s up for another installment of The Fellowship of the Worms?! This time around, I’ve decided on A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. Here’s the Goodreads synopsis:

ataleforthetimebeingIn Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there’s only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates’ bullying, but before she ends it all, Nao plans to document the life of her great-grandmother, a Buddhist nun who’s lived more than a century. A diary is Nao’s only solace—and will touch lives in a ways she can scarcely imagine.

Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox—possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao’s drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future. 

Full of Ozeki’s signature humour and deeply engaged with the relationship between writer and reader, past and present, fact and fiction, quantum physics, history, and myth, A Tale for the Time Being is a brilliantly inventive, beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home.

It sounds pretty intense, but I cannot wait. I’ve heard all sorts of rave reviews so I’m really excited to check this one out. For anyone out there interested in joining me, I’ll be posting discussion questions on Friday, September 4, 2015. Despite me interviewing myself earlier this week, I much prefer to internet with friends.

*If you purchase a copy of A Tale for the Time Being through a link on this site, I will receive a small commission. Seriously small. Right now my Amazon affiliate account has all of twelve cents in it.*

10 Responses to “Fellowship of the Worms Announcement: A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki”

  1. Elizabeth

    This book is so good! Knocked my socks off (despite the first three or four pages making me think, “What kind of book is this?!” Glad I kept reading). I can’t wait to hear what everybody thinks.

  2. Andi

    This one is on my Estella Project summer list, and it’s taunting me. I may listen on Scribd audio!

  3. Jenny @ Reading the End

    Excellent choice! I read this a few years ago and loved it. I know some people had conflicted feelings about the ending, so I’ll be interested to see how you and the other readalongers feel about it. (I loved it.)

  4. Sarah Says Read

    Hey, I just grabbed this at the used bookstore this weekend! I probably wasn’t going to get around to reading it, but this just seems like perfect timing so I’ll try to squeeze it in this month 🙂

  5. Beth @ BetaLibrarian

    The description didn’t sound like something I would care about, but I figured I could check it out from the library and just not tell anybody when it failed to hold my attention. Holy crappola, was I ever wrong. I’m only a couple chapters in, but I’m hooked already. Can’t wait to finish it and discuss it!

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