Search results for ""Author Ruth Ozeki""

Book SynopsisA brilliant, unforgettable novel from bestselling author Ruth Ozeki, author of The Book of Form and EmptinessFinalist for the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award“A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be.”In 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 first 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 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 pull

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Book SynopsisWhat did your face look like before your parents were born? Who are you? What is your true self? These are the questions in Ruth Ozeki's mind as she challenges herself to spend three hours gazing into her own reflection, recording every thought and detail.What follows are a lifetime's worth of meditations on race, ageing, family, death, the body, self-doubt and, finally, acceptance. In this profound encounter with memory and the mirror, Ozeki weaves together personal history, professional experience, Zen philosophy, Japanese culture and more to paint a rich, intimate and utterly unique portrait of a life as told through a face.Trade ReviewStrange in the best sense, plus funny, moving and deeply wise * * San Francisco Chronicle * *The Face, as with the best of literary nonfiction, incorporates elements of memoir and essay, conjecture and meditation, allowing the reader to accompany each author as [she] creates a text that is utterly unique and universally affecting . . . funny, sad and profound * * Los Angeles Review of Books * *Throughout Ozeki's essay her refreshing and cultivated wisdom leads us through the mind of a compassionate, grounded human and a writer of real integrity * * Electric Literature * *One of those perfect books you can read in an afternoon, but think about for days and days afterward * * Book Riot * *Praise for The Book of Form and Emptiness: Heart-breaking and heart-healing - a book to not only keep us absorbed but also to help us think and love and live and listen. No one writes quite like Ruth Ozeki and The Book of Form and Emptiness is a triumph -- MATT HAIGPraise for A Tale for the Time Being: This is one of the most deeply moving and thought-provoking novels I have read in a long time. In precise and luminous prose, Ozeki captures both the sweep and detail of our shared humanity, moving seamlessly between Nao's story and our own -- MADELINE MILLERA triumph . . . Ozeki explores what it means to be human in this moment, right now (Nao). Her novel is saturated with love, ideas and compassion. In short, an absolute treat * * Sunday Times * *A Tale for the Time Being is a timeless story. Ruth Ozeki beautifully renders not only the devastation of the collision between man and the natural world, but also the often miraculous results of it. She is a deeply intelligent and humane writer who offers her insights with a grace that beguiles. I truly love this novel -- ALICE SEBOLDIngenious and touching, A Tale for the Time Being is also highly readable. And interesting: the contrast of cultures is especially well done -- PHILIP PULLMANA beautifully interwoven novel about magic and loss and the incomprehensible threads that connect our lives. I just finished it, and loved it -- ELIZABETH GILBERT

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Book SynopsisIn a single eye-opening year two women, worlds apart, experience parallel awakenings. In New York, Jane Takagi-Little lands a job producing a Japanese television show sponsored by an American meat-exporting business, exposing some unsavoury truths - about the meat industry and herself. In Tokyo, housewife Akiko Ueno diligently prepares the recipes from Jane's programme. Struggling to please her husband, she increasingly doubts her commitment to the life she has fallen into. As Jane and Akiko both battle to assert their individuality on opposite sides of the globe, they are drawn together in a startling story of strength, courage and love.Trade ReviewSmart, funny, irreverent * * Guardian * *There are not many novels that can justify the label "extraordinary" . . . It grapples with a quite astonishing pantheon of themes . . . The writing is witty, intelligent and passionate * * Independent * *An amazingly assured debut, My Year of Meats is a wonderfully irreverent novel, with wacky cross-cultural collisions and hilarious characters . . . a joy to read * * Elle * *Ozeki offers a remarkably fresh view of the rocky road many women travel to love and motherhood * * Glamour * *Pulsates with passion . . . Ozeki's first novel detonates an attack on the meat industry that would make Upton Sinclair sit up and smile . . . yet all this energy doesn't obscure the novel's quirky charm * * USA Today * *A meaty novel about relationships, cultural boundaries and the beef industry . . . Ruth Ozeki masks a deeper purpose with a light tone . . . delightful -- JANE SMILEY, author of A Thousand Acres

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Book SynopsisIn the wake of the 2011 tsunami, Ruth discovers a Hello Kitty lunchbox washed up on the shore of her beach home in British Columbia. Within it lies a diary that expresses the hopes, heartbreak and dreams of a young girl desperate for someone to understand her. Each turn of the page pulls Ruth deeper into the mystery of Nao's life, and forever changes her in a way neither could foresee.Weaving across continents and decades, A Tale for the Time Being is an extraordinary novel about our shared humanity and the search for home.Trade ReviewThis is one of the most deeply moving and thought-provoking novels I have read in a long time. In precise and luminous prose, Ozeki captures both the sweep and detail of our shared humanity, moving seamlessly between Nao's story and our own -- Madeline Miller * * author of THE SONG OF ACHILLES * *A triumph . . . Ozeki explores what it means to be human in this moment, right now (Nao). Her novel is saturated with love, ideas and compassion. In short, an absolute treat -- Lucy Atkins * * Sunday Times * *A Tale for the Time Being is a timeless story. Ruth Ozeki beautifully renders not only the devastation of the collision between man and the natural world, but also the often miraculous results of it. She is a deeply intelligent and humane writer who offers her insights with a grace that beguiles. I truly love this novel -- Alice SeboldIngenious and touching, A Tale for the Time Being is also highly readable. And interesting: the contrast of cultures is especially well done -- Philip PullmanA beautifully interwoven novel about magic and loss and the incomprehensible threads that connect our lives. I just finished it, and loved it -- Elizabeth Gilbert * * author of EAT, PRAY, LOVE * *Funny, heartbreaking, moving and profound . . . The warmth, compassion, wisdom and insight with which Ozeki pieces all these stories together will have the reader linked in a similarly profound way to this fantastic novel -- Doug Johnstone * * Independent * *There is far too much to say about this remarkable and ambitious book in a few sentences. This is for real and not just another hyped-up blurb. A Tale For the Time Being is a great achievement, and it is the work of a writer at the height of her powers. Ruth Ozeki has not only reinvigorated the novel itself, the form, but she's given us the tried and true, deep and essential pleasure of characters who we love and who matter -- Jane Hamilton * * author of A MAP OF THE WORLD * *A Tale for the Time Being is equal parts mystery and meditation. The mystery is a compulsive, gritty page-turner. The meditation -- on time and memory, on the oceanic movement of history, on impermanence and uncertainty, but also resilience and bravery - is deep and gorgeous and wise. A completely satisfying, continually surprising, wholly remarkable achievement, this is a book to be read and reread -- Karen Joy Fowler * * author of THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB * *A huge, compassionate and cleverly wrought novel -- Natasha Lehrer * * TLS * *Packed with philosophical asides about time, and is unexpectedly moving -- Kate Saunders * * The Times * *

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Book SynopsisA cross-cultural tale of two women brought together by the intersections of television and industrial agriculture, fertility and motherhood, life and love—the breakout hit by the celebrated author of A Tale for the Time Being and The Book of Form and Emptiness Ruth Ozeki’s mesmerizing debut novel has captivated readers and reviewers worldwide. When documentarian Jane Takagi-Little finally lands a job producing a Japanese television show that just happens to be sponsored by an American meat-exporting business, she uncovers some unsavory truths about love, fertility, and a dangerous hormone called DES. Soon she will also cross paths with Akiko Ueno, a beleaguered Japanese housewife struggling to escape her overbearing husband. Hailed by USA Today as “rare and provocative” and awarded the Kirayama Prize for Literature of the Pacific Rim, My Year of Meats is a modern-day take on Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle for

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2022When a book and a reader are meant for each other, both of them know it . . .After the tragic death of his father, fourteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house and sound variously pleasant, angry or sad. Then his mother develops a hoarding problem, and the voices grow more clamorous. So Benny seeks refuge in the silence of a large public library. There he meets a mesmerising street artist with a smug pet ferret; a homeless philosopher-poet; and his very own Book, who narrates Benny's life and teaches him to listen to the things that truly matter. Blending unforgettable characters with jazz, climate change and our attachment to material possessions, this is classic Ruth Ozeki - bold, humane and heartbreaking.Trade ReviewThis compassionate novel of life, love and loss glows in the dark. Its strange, beautiful pages turn themselves. If you've lost your way with fiction over the last year or two, let The Book of Form and Emptiness light your way home -- DAVID MITCHELLThe Book of Form and Emptiness is a big, polyphonic, often comic, magical-realist collage of a novel that attempts to interrogate the most pressing issues of the age . . . at its heart is a compelling story of human connection and the redemptive power of art . . . Ozeki is a talented storyteller * * Guardian * *Heart-breaking and heart-healing - a book to not only keep us absorbed but also to help us think and love and live and listen. No one writes quite like Ruth Ozeki and The Book of Form and Emptiness is a triumph -- MATT HAIGThere's powerful magic here . . . Ozeki is unusually patient with her characters, even the rebarbative ones, and she is able to record the subtle peculiarities of other classes of beings that more overeager writers would probably miss . . . Ozeki gives us a metaphor for our very own American consumption disorder, our love-hate relationship with the stuff we produce and can't let go of * * New York Times Book Review * *This is both an extremely vivid picture of a small family enduring unimaginable loss, and a very powerful meditation on the way books can contain the chaos of the world and give it meaning and order. Annabelle and Benny Oh try to stay afloat in a sea of things, news, substances, technological soullessness and psychiatric quagmires, and the way they learn to live and breathe and even swim through it all feels like the struggle we all face. The Book of Form and Emptiness builds on the themes of A Tale for the Time Being, and ratifies Ozeki as one of our era's most compassionate and original minds -- DAVE EGGERSOnce again, Ozeki has created a masterpiece. Her generous heart, remarkable imagination and brilliant mind light up every page -- KAREN JOY FOWLERStorytelling rarely comes more capacious than Ruth Ozeki's latest novel . . . Ozeki interconnects zen philosophy, the environmental crisis, a critique of our mass consumer lifestyle and a playful post-modern sensibility - one of the characters is a talking book - within a novel that, for all its wide-ranging intellectual restlessness, remains grounded in its characters' emotional reality * * Daily Mail * *The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki was so special. When I first read it, I was blown away. There are so many fantastic characters and the fact that it's narrated by a book made it extra special. I just loved every single word of it! And it's quite a big book, so I was really impressed that I didn't get bored . . . I completely immersed myself in it and I enjoyed every word -- DOROTHY KOOMSONMoving . . . Ozeki has considerable storytelling energies * * Financial Times * *Philosophically serious and formally playful . . . deeply affecting and uplifting * * Guardian * *

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Book SynopsisThis book is about the inner sources of spontaneous creation. It is about where art in the widest sense comes from. It is about why we create and what we learn while doing so. It is about the flow of unhindered creative energy: the joy of making art in all its varied forms.Free Play is directed towards people in any field who want to contact, honour and strengthen their own creative powers. It reveals how inspiration arises within us, how that inspiration may be blocked, derailed or obscured by certain unavoidable facts of life. How it can finally be liberated - how we can be liberated - to speak or sing, write or paint, dance or play, with our own authentic voice.Wise, generous and timeless, it has been a touchstone for creativity since 1990 and it is a book that you will find yourself reaching for again and again in times of need. This 2024 edition includes a new afterword by the author and a foreword by Women's Prize for Fiction-winner Ruth Ozeki.Trade ReviewAlmost 35 years [after first publication], Free Play feels wise, relevant and very Zen. In a new foreword, Ruth Ozeki marvels at the freeing notion that every conversation is a form of improvisation. But it's Nachmanovitch's updated afterword that really hits home; in an increasingly unstable world, just to say an honest, authentic word can be utterly transformative * * Observer * *A classic. Nachmanovitch examines the prerequisites of creation, offers concrete strategies for active surrender [and] considers the ultimate impetus of why we are called to create at all . . . altogether vitalising. The remedy for creative block and existential stuckness -- MARIA POPOVANachmanovitch tells it like it is in the most important book on improvisation I've yet seen -- KEITH JARRETTI absolutely love this book. What a blissful, friendly, fiercely intelligent thing; it expresses truths that I am groping towards in a way that is emboldening and clarifying. I don't think I have ever felt so happy to shout about or recommend a book and I know I will read it again and again -- CATHY RENTZENBRINKThis is the book I've been missing my whole life . . . I am grateful to Stephen Nachmanovitch for sharing his wisdom in these pages. I expect - I hope - to be rereading [Free Play] and practicing with it for the rest of my life -- RUTH OZEKIStephen Nachmanovitch has produced a celebration of human uniqueness -- NORMAN COUSINSWould that Free Play found its way into every school, office, hospital, and factory. It is a most exciting book and a most important one -- YEHUDI MENUHINIf you want to be intellectually informed about how people actually create things, then you should read it at least once -- ROBERT PIRSIGNot only gives the reader an inside view of the states of mind that give rise to improvisation, it is also a celebration of the power of the human spirit, which when exercised with love, immense patience and discipline is an antidote to hate -- YO-YO MA on THE ART OF IS

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Book SynopsisYamada answered "no" twice in a compulsory government questionnaire as to whether he would serve in the armed forces and swear loyalty to the United States. This book tells the story of Ichiro Yamada, a fictional version of the real-life "no-no boys."Trade Review"Asian American readers will appreciate the sensitivity and integrity with which the late John Okada wrote about his own group. He heralded the beginning of an authentic Japanese American literature." -- Gordon Hirabayashi * Pacific Affairs *"Nisei will recognize the authenticity of the idioms Okada’s characters use, as well as his descriptions of the familiar Issei and Nisei mannerisms that make them come alive." -- Bill Hosokawa * Pacific Citizen *"[This new edition] brings Okada's groundbreaking work to a new generation . . . an internee and enlisted man himself, [Okada] wrote in a raw, brutal stream of consciousness that echoes the pain and intergenerational conflict faced by those struggling to reconcile their heritage to the concept of an American dream." -- Nancy Powell * Shelf Awareness *"It is both an important document of Japanese American and Pacific Northwest history and a compelling novel." -- Emily Lutenski * Pacific Northwest Quarterly *"Reading No-No Boy, this week, it no longer seemed bound to its past; it felt like a prophecy, a cosmic tragedy, a message in a bottle that arrives a half century later." -- Hua Hsu * Page-Turner *"It’s incorrect to say that No-No Boy is a forgotten masterwork . . . but it isn’t often acknowledged for articulating what had never been said before. The novel was a turning point in the consciousness of Japanese-Americans, and of Asian-Americans more generally—it marked the moment when identity shifted away from the homeland, away from Japan, because Japan was a country that Nisei, like Okada, never really quite knew. It was a novel that struggled to understand the entitlement that came so easily to other Americans—to explain why so few Japanese-Americans protested what had been done to them, that explored the shame of an immigrant who doesn’t feel he has a place in the world." * T: The New York Times Style Magazine *"No-No Boy may be read as a test of character, questioning the rigid binary of loyalty—yes or no—and teaching us what makes us human and complex, what constitutes character, are all the questions and cares that exist between yes and no: ethical and political choices, our best intentions, our social and cultural being, beliefs, courage, fears, failures, and compassion. More than half a century later, Okada's novel challenges us once again with the question of character, asking us, as individuals and as a society, what we are made of." -- Karen Tei Yamashita * Atlantic *"In 2019, No-No Boy is bigger than it's ever been." -- Vince Schleitwiler * The Margins *"I think back to John Okada, who fought in World War II even though his Japanese-American family was in an internment camp. Okada came back from the war and published No-No Boy in 1957, the first novel dealing with the little-known story of Japanese-American draft resisters. . . . Thinking back to writers like Sui Sin Far, Carlos Bulosan and John Okada, it is clear that genius is too often unrecognized in its day." -- Viet Thanh Nguyen * New York Times *"A slow-building 1957 novel about a young Japanese-American who, after the Second World War, is searching for a way to express his psychological anguish. . . . Okada died in 1971, unaware that his book had been discovered by a younger generation." -- Hua Hsu * The New Yorker *"It may be one of the only true classics of Japanese fiction that most Japanophiles have never heard of. No-No Boy . . . unravels the complicated, varied perspectives of Japanese-Americans in the aftermath of World War II under the shadow of the internment camps of the American northwest. . . . For the fascinating, multiple perspectives that unfold to reveal one important point in history, the novel deserves its place as a classic." * Japan Times *"Out of the brutal struggle against racism and anger, Okada finds hope." -- Martha Viehmann * NPR - Code Switch *"No-No Boy is not simply a forceful piece of Asian American literature, but also a realistic account of how war and social injustices affect the psychology of Japanese Americans across generations. . . . Presenting the trauma of Japanese Americans and their coping process, No-No Boy is itself and effort to break the silence and counter social amnesia." * Inquiries Journal *"The book is still the great Japanese American tragedy, whose power and authenticity derives from the unexpressed rage of his generation that Okada pours into his characters." -- Frank Abe * International Examiner *"The book, newly relevant today, evolves into a group portrait of immigrant parents and American children, conflicted veterans and no-no boys, those back home from the camps and those repatriated to Japan alike, all trying to move on from the same injustice." -- Nicholas Kulish * New York Times *"No-No Boy has been at the heart of the Asian American literary canon, where it is often treated as a quasi-miraculous artifact that prophesied a literary renaissance that would only come to fruition after the author's death." * Los Angeles Review of Books *"No-No Boy should be read as a salutary reminder of the tragic aftermath of Pearl Harbor, as the story of the distress of a young rebel torn between two societies, but also as a literary testimony to the mass political violence around human rights." * En attendant Nadeau *"[S]eminal novel...a significant book that influenced many Asian American writers who came after Okada." * New York Magazine *Table of ContentsForeword / Ruth Ozeki Introduction / Lawrence Fusao Inada Preface No-No Boy Afterword: In Search of John Okada / Frank Chin

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