Scan barcode
silvan's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
emilynohablaespanol's review
4.0
A year after a devastating loss, thirteen-year-old Benny Oh and his mother Annabelle begin to hear voices. The voices belong to things. An adolescent better attuned to the wavelengths of the earth, Benny hears the emotional thrums of his world— his shoe, a broken Christmas ornament, a pair of scissors. They scream, coo, taunt, and as his mother answers the siren call of consumerism and develops a hoarding problem, their world grows clamorous.
To escape the noise and his mother’s attempts at connecting with a child who only exists now in memory, Benny sneaks off to the public library, a utopic haven where things speak in whispers. There, he falls in love with a street artist and meets her smug ferret. He listens at the feet of a philosopher-poet, banished far from home. And he meets his very own Book, the most important of the talking things, which teaches him how to listen to what really matters.
Once again stretching the abilities of story, Ruth Ozeki illustrates the interconnectedness of the world through our relationships with things: our made things, the things straight from the Origin. Things formed by Mothers, by countries, by struggle, by love. The Book of Form and Emptiness is an astonishing thing itself.
I haven’t stopped thinking about Ozeki’s childlike yet knowing voice since my summer trip to America’s heartland in 2016, during which I read A Tale for the Time Being. Like and unlike Tale, Book exposes a difficult coming of age but in a world closer to an ideal, mostly thanks to the public library. Ozeki honors the word with the capital case— Library. I work in a public library. I’ve seen what the public does to books and to the library, and let me tell you... It ain’t great. But Ozeki lifts it back up and gives my career choice a more sympathetic look. As a result, Book felt like a meditation with the gentle tension of a good plot.
emilynohablaespanol's review against another edition
4.0
This book was supplied by GalleyBooks in exchange for an honest review.
A year after a devastating loss, thirteen-year-old Benny Oh and his mother Annabelle begin to hear voices. The voices belong to things. An adolescent better attuned to the wavelengths of the earth, Benny hears the emotional thrums of his world— his shoe, a broken Christmas ornament, a pair of scissors. They scream, coo, taunt, and as his mother answers the siren call of consumerism and develops a hoarding problem, their world grows clamorous.
To escape the noise and his mother’s attempts at connecting with a child who only exists now in memory, Benny sneaks off to the public library, a utopic haven where things speak in whispers. There, he falls in love with a street artist and meets her smug ferret. He listens at the feet of a philosopher-poet, banished far from home. And he meets his very own Book, the most important of the talking things, which teaches him how to listen to what really matters.
Once again stretching the abilities of story, Ruth Ozeki illustrates the interconnectedness of the world through our relationships with things: our made things, the things straight from the Origin. Things formed by Mothers, by countries, by struggle, by love. The Book of Form and Emptiness is an astonishing thing itself.
**
I haven’t stopped thinking about Ozeki’s childlike yet knowing voice since my summer trip to America’s heartland in 2016, during which I read A Tale for the Time Being. Like and unlike Tale, Book exposes a difficult coming of age but in a world closer to an ideal, mostly thanks to the public library. Ozeki honors the word with the capital case— Library. I work in a public library. I’ve seen what the public does to books and to the library, and let me tell you... It ain’t great. But Ozeki lifts it back up and gives my career choice a more sympathetic look. As a result, Book felt like a meditation with the gentle tension of a good plot.
mairispaceship's review against another edition
5.0
Life is transient. Time will not wait.
Wake up! Wake up!
Do not waste a moment!
The Book of Form and Emptiness was a slow burn. I picked it up hot off the press in hardback but tried and failed to read it again and again over the next 2 years.
I kept seeing it in bookshops every time I went in. In hardback first. Then in paperback. Then occasionally discounted. It always caught my eye and I kept thinking "ah yes, I need to read this". Eventually the book looked so conspicuous on my to read shelf I couldnt wait a second longer, so I grabbed it and started reading.
In a way, like the books in the story gently guiding the characters and the reader to their conclusion, I no longer felt bad about leaving it so long or buying the hardback when I should have waited for a paperback. Because like the things that happened in this book, my reading of the book at this exact time and place was perfectly as it was all intended. This specific book was always meant to be mine. It was printed just for me.
If that sounds cryptic... it is! I'm trying not to give away too much of what the book is about. But essentially the book is about books.
What would books say if they had a voice? What is a bound and unbound voice? And what does Marie Kondo have to do with it all? Pick a copy out to find out. Or maybe the copy will pick you out.
booksnlavender's review
3.0
pamhill's review
3.0
ashuu95's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
tahirarani's review
3.0