I liken the 16-year-old narrator, Naoko, to Holden Caulfield: caustic, but with profound insights; witty, but tortured. Her voicing brought levity and humor to really big themes of trauma and love and loss; quantum mechanics and time and the multiverse.... Don't miss this one. Witty, moving, profound. If you also love ambiguous endings because life is, well...ambiguous...this one will also hit all the right notes.
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 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…
Oh, Hubert Bird, I love you so. I couldn't talk about this book in public for about a month after reading it. An unflinching look at topics like racism, family fractures, bereavement, friendship, which is as beautiful as it is painful. It's a book for our time. It shows the world that I want to live in, with friends from all quarters and generations, coming together to help create community for each other. Amazing, beautiful.
If you loved A Man Called Ove, then prepare to be delighted as Jamaican immigrant Hubert rediscovers the world he'd turned his back on this "warm, funny" novel (Good Housekeeping).
In weekly phone calls to his daughter in Australia, widower Hubert Bird paints a picture of the perfect retirement, packed with fun, friendship, and fulfillment. But it's a lie. In reality, Hubert's days are all the same, dragging on without him seeing a single soul.
Until he receives some good news—good news that in one way turns out to be the worst news ever, news that will force him out…
I loved the whimsy and subtle magic that made this one kind of "historical fiction-Plus." The relationship between the protagonist, Anne, and her Irish grandfather, Eoin, was brilliantly and movingly portrayed. I was crying on page one. And although there is a very satisfying and wonderful romance here, it is her relationship with her grandfather that brought me to tears again and again. Just a lovely read.
In an unforgettable love story, a woman's impossible journey through the ages could change everything...
Anne Gallagher grew up enchanted by her grandfather's stories of Ireland. Heartbroken at his death, she travels to his childhood home to spread his ashes. There, overcome with memories of the man she adored and consumed by a history she never knew, she is pulled into another time.
The Ireland of 1921, teetering on the edge of war, is a dangerous place in which to awaken. But there Anne finds herself, hurt, disoriented, and under the care of…
Alexandra Chan thinks she has life figured out until, in the Year of the Ram, the death of her father—her last parent—brings her to her knees, an event seemingly foretold in Chinese mythology.
A left-brained archaeologist and successful tiger daughter, Chan finds her logical approach to life utterly fails her in the face of this profound grief. Unable to find a way forward, she must either burn to ash or forge herself anew.
Slowly, painfully, wondrously, Chan discovers that her father and ancestors have left threads of renewal in the artifacts and stories of their lives. Through a long-lost interview conducted by Roosevelt’s Federal Writers’ Project, a basket of war letters written from the Burmese jungle, a box of photographs, her world travels, and a deepening relationship to her own art, the archaeologist and lifelong rationalist makes her greatest discovery to date: the healing power of enchantment.
In an epic story that travels from prerevolution China to the South under Jim Crow, from the Pacific theater of WWII to the black sands of Reynisfjara, Iceland, and beyond, Chan takes us on a universal journey to meaning in the wake of devastating loss, sharing the insights and tools that allowed her to rebuild her life and resurrect her spirit. Part memoir, part lyrical invitation to new ways of seeing and better ways of being in dark times, the book includes beautiful full-color original Chinese brush paintings by the author and fascinating vintage photographs of an unforgettable cast of characters. In the Garden Behind the Moon is a captivating family portrait and an urgent call to awaken to the magic and wonder of daily life.
