A Tale for the Time Being. By Ruth Ozeki (New York : Viking, 2013. 422 pp.)

From the desk of Sean Lanksbury, PNW & Special Collections Librarian

When a diary sails across the Pacific in a Hello Kitty lunchbox to the shore of an island in British Columbia, it is recovered by a novelist named Ruth recently relocated from New York City.  In this diary a teenage girl finds sanctuary, purging into its pages her daily trials as she adjusts and copes with brutal Japanese classmates and a youth culture alien to her, musing on her relocation from the United States, ranting about and reflecting upon the failings of her parents, and making personal revelations catalyzed by her Great-Grandmother, Jiko, a Zen Buddhist Priest.  Ruth (the character) serves as the primary witness to Nao’s sufferings as Ruth herself manages her own grief, isolation, writer’s block, and hindered sense of self alongside her drive to discover the mysterious fate of this child author.

The book within the book grapples bullying, culture shock, economic hard times, and asks questions of ethical duty and the potential price a family pays to reconcile the legacy they share.  The author of Tale for the Time Being, Ruth Ozeki, like the story’s great-grandmother, is a Zen Buddhist Priest and was ordained in 2010.  She divides her time between the Pacific Northwest and New York City. Whatever parallels you wish to draw from this are up to you.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2013, this is a highly recommended read.  The book on the whole plays with history, time, and biography pulling and snapping back each element like narrative putty.  It is refreshingly unsentimental in its humanistic approach, and the tale’s stylistically bold design is jeweled with relatable characters.

Ms. Ozeki will also be in Washington as the opening speaker for the 2014-15 Artist and Lecture Series at South Puget Sound Community College, on Oct 9th.

ISBN-13: 9780670026630

Available at the State Library’s Pacific Northwest Collections, NW 813.6 OZEKI 2013

and as a physical and downloadable talking book through NLS and WTBBL

Jamie Ford

The “community read movement” started in 1998 in Seattle and has gained popularity across the United States. I’ve been intrigued by them for many years. And while I hear about them all the time, I’ve never heard of one taking place inside a prison. So, last summer, I decided to organize one for Coyote Ridge. And it wasn’t easy, but I did it.

The book I decided to use was Jamie Ford’s Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. Maybe you’ve heard of it? It has been translated into over 30 different languages. The setting is Seattle, and the book was recently selected for a community read in Pierce County, Washington, which is where I managed to get 45 used copies of the book.

Now, for those who don’t know, a community read is different from a regular book group in three ways, 1) it is open to an entire community, 2) it includes supplementary social events related to themes in the book of choice, and 3) it usually includes a guest appearance by the author. At first, I was unsure about how I would achieve that third piece. Without any programming funds available, I wasn’t sure how to entice this successful author, who lives in Montana, to come all the way to Connell, which is miles from any major airport and not exactly a late-night excitement kind of town. Upon contacting his agent, however, I found that they were eager to work with me if we could figure out a way to cover Mr. Ford’s travel expenses. In the end, I was only able to bring Jamie Ford in as a guest speaker by teaming up with a Humanities group at Washington State University’s Tri-City campus, and by a donation from the Friends of the Washington State Library. Finally, after months of planning and negotiating, Mr. Ford spent the evening of Wednesday, March 22, talking to inmates, reading from his book, and answering an endless stream of questions.

In addition to the guest author event, the library at Coyote Ridge hosted a jazz music appreciation event and a historical slide show about the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII, featuring images from Densho and Library of Congress digital archives.