A Tale for the Time Being

In Tokyo, a lonely sixteen-year-old, Nao, finds solace in writing her diary. Across the Pacific, Ruth, a novelist living on an island off the coast of BC, 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 pulled into the past and forward into her own future. Ozeki’s beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home was shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize.