Your basket is empty.
-
- Books
Published: 24/03/2022
As everyday objects start talking to fourteen-year-old Benny in the wake of a family bereavement, he seeks refuge in a library populated by unforgettable characters in this breathtakingly original and compassionate novel from the author of A Tale for the Time Being.
Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction 2022
After the tragic death of his beloved musician father, fourteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house - a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce. Although Benny doesn't understand what these things are saying, he can sense their emotional tone; some are pleasant, a gentle hum or coo, but others are snide, angry and full of pain. When his mother develops a hoarding problem, the voices grow more clamorous.
At first Benny tries to ignore them, but soon the voices follow him outside the house, onto the street and at school, driving him at last to seek refuge in the silence of a large public library, where objects are well-behaved and know to speak in whispers. There, he falls in love with a mesmerising street artist with a smug pet ferret, who uses the library as her performance space. He meets a homeless philosopher-poet, who encourages him to ask important questions and find his own voice amongst the many.
And he meets his very own Book - a talking thing - who narrates Benny's life and teaches him to listen to the things that truly matter.
The Book of Form and Emptiness blends unforgettable characters, riveting plot and vibrant engagement with everything from jazz to climate change to our attachment to material possessions. This is classic Ruth Ozeki - bold, humane and heartbreaking.
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 9781838855277
Number of pages: 560
Weight: 371 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 33 mm
Edition: Main
MEDIA REVIEWS
This compassionate novel of life, love and loss glows in the dark. Its strange, beautiful pages turn themselves. If you've lost your way with fiction over the last year or two, let The Book of Form and Emptiness light your way home - DAVID MITCHELL
The Book of Form and Emptiness is a big, polyphonic, often comic, magical-realist collage of a novel that attempts to interrogate the most pressing issues of the age . . . at its heart is a compelling story of human connection and the redemptive power of art . . . Ozeki is a talented storyteller - Guardian
Heart-breaking and heart-healing - a book to not only keep us absorbed but also to help us think and love and live and listen. No one writes quite like Ruth Ozeki and The Book of Form and Emptiness is a triumph - MATT HAIG
There's powerful magic here . . . Ozeki is unusually patient with her characters, even the rebarbative ones, and she is able to record the subtle peculiarities of other classes of beings that more overeager writers would probably miss . . . Ozeki gives us a metaphor for our very own American consumption disorder, our love-hate relationship with the stuff we produce and can't let go of - New York Times Book Review
This is both an extremely vivid picture of a small family enduring unimaginable loss, and a very powerful meditation on the way books can contain the chaos of the world and give it meaning and order. Annabelle and Benny Oh try to stay afloat in a sea of things, news, substances, technological soullessness and psychiatric quagmires, and the way they learn to live and breathe and even swim through it all feels like the struggle we all face. The Book of Form and Emptiness builds on the themes of A Tale for the Time Being, and ratifies Ozeki as one of our era's most compassionate and original minds - DAVE EGGERS
Once again, Ozeki has created a masterpiece. Her generous heart, remarkable imagination and brilliant mind light up every page - KAREN JOY FOWLER
Storytelling rarely comes more capacious than Ruth Ozeki's latest novel . . . Ozeki interconnects zen philosophy, the environmental crisis, a critique of our mass consumer lifestyle and a playful post-modern sensibility - one of the characters is a talking book - within a novel that, for all its wide-ranging intellectual restlessness, remains grounded in its characters' emotional reality - Daily Mail
The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki was so special. When I first read it, I was blown away. There are so many fantastic characters and the fact that it's narrated by a book made it extra special. I just loved every single word of it! And it's quite a big book, so I was really impressed that I didn't get bored . . . I completely immersed myself in it and I enjoyed every word - DOROTHY KOOMSON
Moving . . . Ozeki has considerable storytelling energies - Financial Times
Philosophically serious and formally playful . . . deeply affecting and uplifting - Guardian
You may also be interested in...
“The Book of Form and Emptiness”
What an incredible book. I saw a review somewhere from David Mitchell that said something like if you have lost your way with fiction recently, this book will help you find it again, and I agree with that - although... More
“wonderful!”
The Book of Form & Emptiness is a long book that requires your full attention and commitment. And it repays you 10 times your effort. It is heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. The writing is utterly... More
“I missed these characters within minutes of finishing the book!”
In 'The Book of Form and Emptiness' Ruth Ozeki has created a world of characters that I care for as though they were real people, and if the book's own message is to be believed, there is nothing wrong... More
Please sign in to write a review
Sign In / Register
Sign In
Download the Waterstones App
Would you like to proceed to the App store to download the Waterstones App?