Book Report: A Tale For The Time Being

It's been awhile since I wrote about a book...with a few exceptions, my recent reads were dismissed soon after finishing the last page. That's how it goes sometimes, especially if I'm not giving reading my full attention. On a recent trip I had quiet time to really dive into a story which had been sitting on my bedside table all year. A Tale For The Time Being is a story about a young American girl in Japan who wrote about her life in a journal...the bullying she gets at school, her love for her Buddhist nun great-grandmother, her admiration for her kamikaze pilot uncle, and her fear for her suicidal father. The journal is found in a packet washed up on an island in Canada by a woman who is struggling to write her own story. The book flips back and forth between the girl, Naoki, and the woman, Ruth, as she reads the girl's journal (I love books with multiple points of view!). Ruth, gets really absorbed in the Nao's fate, and shadows of Nao's story start to creep into her life. This book was a page turner and so interesting and unique with the teenage drama, all the mysteries, the bits of philosophy, and even a splash of quantum physics. Highly recommended! 

(I link books to Green Apple Books in San Francisco...my favorite local bookstore...but they don't know me and I get no kickbacks)