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The Book of Form and Emptiness
Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022
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Check link for latest rating. ( 37,455 ratings, 5,452 reviews)
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Description
After his father dies, Benny Oh finds he can hear objects talking: teapots, marbles and sharpened pencils, babbling in anger or distress. His mother, struggling to support their household alone, starts collecting things to give her comfort. Overwhelmed by the clamour of all the stuff, Benny seeks refuge in the beautiful silence of the public library.
There, the objects speak only in whispers. There, he meets a homeless poet and a mesmerising young performance artist. There, a book reaches out to him. Not just any book: his own book. And a very important conversation begins.
The Book of Form and Emptiness is about grief, resilience, creativity and psychological difference. It is about the importance of reading, and an observation of the mess consumer culture has got us into. It is an affirmation of the power of community. It is funny, kind, wise, urgent and completely irresistible. If you let it—if you listen—it could change your life.
Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?
The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki receives glowing reviews for its compassionate exploration of themes like grief, creativity, and consumer culture. Critics praise it as a reality-expanding, magical realist novel filled with humour, wisdom, and the redemptive power of art. This inventive and vivid narrative, infused with Zen philosophy, captivates readers with its unique characters and the enchanting relationship between people and objects.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781922458902
Publisher: Text Publishing
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 02 May 2023
Country: Australia
Imprint: The Text Publishing Company
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Width: 129.0mm
Height: 198.0mm
Weight: 250g
Pages: 512
About the Author
Ruth Ozeki was born and raised in Connecticut by an American father and a Japanese mother. She is a novelist, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest whose books have garnered international acclaim. Her first two novels, My Year of Meats (1998) and All Over Creation (2003), have been translated into eleven languages and published in fourteen countries. Her third novel, A Tale for the Time Being (2013), won the LA Times Book Prize, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and has been published in over thirty countries.
Also by Ruth Ozeki
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A Tale for the Time Being
Nao lives in Tokyo. She is sixteen and has decided to write a diary before she kills herself. She has plenty of material—school bullies, depressed parents—but she particularly wants to chronicle the life of her great-grandmother, Jiko, a Buddhist nun. Eventually, Nao thinks, her diary will find its reader. Ruth lives with her husband on the Pacific coast of Canada....Paperback$2700Elsewhere:$3000Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
The Book of Form and Emptiness
After his father dies, Benny Oh finds he can hear objects talking: teapots, marbles and sharpened pencils, babbling in anger or distress. His mother, struggling to support their household alone, starts collecting things to give her comfort. Overwhelmed by the clamour of all the stuff, Benny seeks refuge in the beautiful silence of the public library. There, the objects speak...Paperback$3600Elsewhere:$4000Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
All Over Creation
Yumi Fuller hasn't set foot in Liberty Falls, Idaho — heart of the potato-farming industry — since she ran away at age fifteen. Twenty-five years later, the prodigal daughter returns to confront her dying parents, her best friend, and her conflicted past. She finds herself caught up in an altogether new drama. The post-millennial farming community has been invaded by...Paperback$2700Elsewhere:$3000Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
Timecode of a Face
What 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,...Paperback$2600Elsewhere:$2799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
The Typing Lady
A new collection of short stories from beloved Women's-Prize winning author Ruth Ozeki. A spellbinding story collection about the lives we almost lived, the people we can't quite forget, and the stories that shape us. A college student falls for her professor and learns to transmute longing into language. A disquieted husband watches with tenderness and unease as the ghost...Paperback$4000Unit price /UnavailableBackorderShips mid September -
A Tale for the Time Being
A brilliant, unforgettable novel from bestselling author Ruth Ozeki, author of The Book of Form and Emptiness Finalist 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...Paperback$5400Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 2-3 weeks -
My Year of Meats
When documentary maker 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 unsavoury 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. And the...PaperbackSold Out
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