"A Tale for the Time Being" (audio)

Wisdom Quarterly; NPR.org; Goodreads.com

“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” (Ruth Ozeki).
 
In Tokyo, 16-year-old Nao [Now] 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 century. A diary is Nao’s only solace -- and will touch lives in ways she can scarcely imagine.

• LISTEN NOW (NPR review)

Across the Pacific Ocean, we meet Ruth, a novelist and Buddhist priestess living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox -- possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami [and Fukushima nuclear fallout catastrophe]... More