Multnomah County Library (MCL) has announced the Everybody Reads 2023 reading selection, Ruth Ozeki’s award-winning novel A Tale for the Time Being. The book tells the story of two strangers who live on opposite sides of the world.
Nao is a Tokyo teenager who can no longer cope with the bullying she is experiencing at school. She decides to commit suicide, but first writes the story of her beloved great-grandmother, a Buddhist nun. Ruth, a novelist living across the Pacific, finds a Hello Kitty lunchbox washed up on the shore of her remote island with Nao’s diary inside–possibly debris from the 2011 tsunami.
In alternating chapters, the stories of Nao and Ruth unfold, and as they do, Ozeki addresses questions about the nature of time, existence and identity. Through the intersecting stories, themes of bullying, loneliness and compassion are addressed and ideas of quantum physics, mythology and connection explored.
Ruth Ozeki is a novelist, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest. Her books have garnered international acclaim for the way they integrate issues of science, technology, religion, environmental politics and global pop culture. A Tale for the Time Being won the LA Times Book Prize, has been published in over 20 countries and was shortlisted for the The Booker Prize, the world’s leading literary award for a single work of fiction.
Everybody Reads is a community-wide reading project that brings together people across Multnomah County to read the same book at once. In partnership with Literary Arts and The Library Foundation, Everybody Reads is an opportunity to connect, discuss and engage.
Hard copy books will be available for free at all neighborhood libraries beginning January 2023. Those too eager to wait to read the book until 2023 can borrow it from MCL in eBook, downloadable audiobook and book formats currently.
High school teachers around the county who are willing to commit to reading and discussing the book during the program can also apply through October 31 to receive books for their classrooms at .Â
In 2023, the library will host a series of events for people of all ages to explore the book’s themes of time and how we are linked together by common and uncommon human experiences. Look for event details to be posted at multcolib.org/everybody-reads.
The final event, “An Evening with Ruth Ozeki,” will occur on Thursday, March 16, 2023, 7:30 pm, at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.
