Community & Culture
Fish Island Book Supper Club - January 2026
Get ready for a cozy evening at the Fish Island Book Supper Club January edition. Join us in UNLOCK to discuss A Tale for the Time Being over pizza and wine (we don't subscribe to dry January). Enjoy the book over the holidays and come ready to discuss it's weird and wonderful plot and characters.
Your ticket includes:
A copy of the book A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
A pizza of your choice from the Classic Pizza menu
A glass of house wine or beer (or soft drink)
A small tiramisu
Book available for collection from Fish Island Books (in Unlock). Delivery possible, please contact us to arrange! info@fishislandbooks.com
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki is a beautifully layered novel that weaves together two narratives across the Pacific.
In Tokyo, teenage Nao writes in her diary about her life - bullying at school, her family's struggles after her father loses his job, and her relationship with her remarkable 104-year-old great-grandmother Jiko, a Buddhist nun.
On a remote island in British Columbia, writer Ruth discovers Nao's diary washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox - seemingly debris from the 2011 Japanese tsunami. As Ruth reads, she becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to Nao, while her own life and anxieties about time, memory, and environmental crisis intertwine with the girl's story.
The novel is a meditation on connection across time and space, the relationship between reader and writer, quantum physics, Zen Buddhism, and how our lives intersect in unexpected ways. It's philosophical but accessible and deeply human - funny, devastating, and ultimately hopeful about the power of bearing witness to each other's stories.
