“Ozeki is one of the smartest (and funniest) writers I know, and in this novel she flat-out knocks it out of the park. “A Tale for the Time Being” is as layered and mysterious as life and it’s overwhelmingly wise, reaching across lands and language and time to show the unity, solitude, confusion and hope at the heart of the human experience. A powerful, beautiful book.”
December 26, 2013
Salon
Salon’s Ultimate Book Guide For 2013
Michele Filgate
“Ruth Ozeki’s recent novel, the 2013 Man Booker-shortlisted “A Tale For the Time Being,” is best described as a hybrid: a fictional masterpiece with footnotes and appendices like a research paper; a colorful scrawl of inventive creativity marked by scientific asides ranging from ocean gyres to quantum mechanics; a playful meta-fiction, the memoir Ozeki never wrote — an unforgettable Zen collusion of time and space housed within a paper shell.”
November 23,2013
The Japan Times
Ozeki’s work reflects her complex identity
Kris Kosaka
“Ruth Ozeki’s wonderfully clever and vast-hearted A Tale For The Time Being is a turbulent story of two parts, told in counterpoint, and preoccupied with doublenesses and simultaneities. In keeping with the quantum physics that animate it, it manages to be at once tender and refined, comic and grave, hopeful and desperate. We loved its spirit, in several senses, and we are all Hello Kitty fans now.”
October 15, 2013
Man Booker Prize
Robert Macfarlane announces the Man Booker 2013 winner
Robert Macfarlane, Chair of judges, 2013 Man Booker Prize
October 8, 2013
The Guardian
Booker prize 2013: why Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being should win
Richard Lea
“A Zen novel, it’s about dualities at every level... it is incredibly clever and incredibly sweet, it is big hearted and a novel we decided was most likely to make us realise the process of reading 152 books could make us feel Zen, rather than a little tired.”
September 11, 2013
BBC News
Man Booker Prize 2013: Shortlist at a glance