Listen free for 30 days
-
The Book of Form and Emptiness
- Narrated by: Kerry Shale, Ruth Ozeki
- Length: 18 hrs and 53 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $32.58
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
You may also enjoy...
-
A Tale for the Time Being
- Written by: Ruth Ozeki
- Narrated by: Ruth Ozeki
- Length: 14 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Tokyo, 16-year-old Nao has decided there's only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates' bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao first plans to document the life of her great grandmother, a Buddhist nun who's lived more than a century. A diary is Nao's only solace—and will touch lives in ways she can scarcely imagine. Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox - possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami.
-
-
all-timer
- By Ailsa on 2018-12-03
Written by: Ruth Ozeki
-
The Singer's Gun
- Written by: Emily St. John Mandel
- Narrated by: Morgan Hallett
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone Anton Waker grew up with is corrupt. His parents dealt in stolen goods, and he was a successful purveyor of forged documents until he abandoned it all in his early twenties, determined to live a normal life, complete with career, apartment, and a fiancée who knows nothing of his criminal beginnings. He’s on the verge of finally getting married when Aria—his cousin and former partner in crime—blackmails him into helping her with one last job.
Written by: Emily St. John Mandel
-
The Night Watchman
- Written by: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Louise Erdrich
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, DC, this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.
-
-
Beautifully written…..
- By Carolyn Ledwell on 2022-06-06
Written by: Louise Erdrich
-
The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven
- Written by: Nathaniel Ian Miller
- Narrated by: Olafur Darri Olafsson
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1916, Sven Ormson leaves a restless life in Stockholm to seek adventure in Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago where darkness reigns four months of the year and he might witness the splendor of the Northern Lights one night and be attacked by a polar bear the next. But his time as a miner ends when an avalanche nearly kills him, leaving him disfigured, and Sven flees even further, to an uninhabited fjord. There, with the company of a loyal dog, he builds a hut and lives alone, testing himself against the elements.
Written by: Nathaniel Ian Miller
-
The Mercies
- Written by: Kiran Millwood Hargrave
- Narrated by: Jessie Buckley
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Finnmark, Norway, 1617. Twenty-year-old Maren Magnusdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. With the menfolk wiped out, the women of the tiny Arctic town of Vardø must fend for themselves. Three years later, a stranger arrives on their shore. Absalom Cornet comes from Scotland, where he burned witches in the northern isles. He brings with him his young Norwegian wife, Ursa.
-
-
Depressing and sad
- By MH on 2020-09-17
Written by: Kiran Millwood Hargrave
-
Reincarnation Blues
- A Novel
- Written by: Michael Poore
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First we live. Then we die. And then...we get another try? Ten thousand tries, to be exact. Ten thousand lives to "get it right". Answer all the big questions. Achieve wisdom. And become one with everything. Milo has had 9,995 chances so far and has just five more lives to earn a place in the cosmic soul. If he doesn't make the cut, oblivion awaits. But all Milo really wants is to fall forever into the arms of Death. Or Suzie, as he calls her.
-
-
Amazing
- By Robin on 2021-03-08
Written by: Michael Poore
-
A Tale for the Time Being
- Written by: Ruth Ozeki
- Narrated by: Ruth Ozeki
- Length: 14 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Tokyo, 16-year-old Nao has decided there's only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates' bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao first plans to document the life of her great grandmother, a Buddhist nun who's lived more than a century. A diary is Nao's only solace—and will touch lives in ways she can scarcely imagine. Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox - possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami.
-
-
all-timer
- By Ailsa on 2018-12-03
Written by: Ruth Ozeki
-
The Singer's Gun
- Written by: Emily St. John Mandel
- Narrated by: Morgan Hallett
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone Anton Waker grew up with is corrupt. His parents dealt in stolen goods, and he was a successful purveyor of forged documents until he abandoned it all in his early twenties, determined to live a normal life, complete with career, apartment, and a fiancée who knows nothing of his criminal beginnings. He’s on the verge of finally getting married when Aria—his cousin and former partner in crime—blackmails him into helping her with one last job.
Written by: Emily St. John Mandel
-
The Night Watchman
- Written by: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Louise Erdrich
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, DC, this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.
-
-
Beautifully written…..
- By Carolyn Ledwell on 2022-06-06
Written by: Louise Erdrich
-
The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven
- Written by: Nathaniel Ian Miller
- Narrated by: Olafur Darri Olafsson
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1916, Sven Ormson leaves a restless life in Stockholm to seek adventure in Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago where darkness reigns four months of the year and he might witness the splendor of the Northern Lights one night and be attacked by a polar bear the next. But his time as a miner ends when an avalanche nearly kills him, leaving him disfigured, and Sven flees even further, to an uninhabited fjord. There, with the company of a loyal dog, he builds a hut and lives alone, testing himself against the elements.
Written by: Nathaniel Ian Miller
-
The Mercies
- Written by: Kiran Millwood Hargrave
- Narrated by: Jessie Buckley
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Finnmark, Norway, 1617. Twenty-year-old Maren Magnusdatter stands on the craggy coast, watching the sea break into a sudden and reckless storm. Forty fishermen, including her brother and father, are drowned and left broken on the rocks below. With the menfolk wiped out, the women of the tiny Arctic town of Vardø must fend for themselves. Three years later, a stranger arrives on their shore. Absalom Cornet comes from Scotland, where he burned witches in the northern isles. He brings with him his young Norwegian wife, Ursa.
-
-
Depressing and sad
- By MH on 2020-09-17
Written by: Kiran Millwood Hargrave
-
Reincarnation Blues
- A Novel
- Written by: Michael Poore
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First we live. Then we die. And then...we get another try? Ten thousand tries, to be exact. Ten thousand lives to "get it right". Answer all the big questions. Achieve wisdom. And become one with everything. Milo has had 9,995 chances so far and has just five more lives to earn a place in the cosmic soul. If he doesn't make the cut, oblivion awaits. But all Milo really wants is to fall forever into the arms of Death. Or Suzie, as he calls her.
-
-
Amazing
- By Robin on 2021-03-08
Written by: Michael Poore
-
Tales of the City
- Tales of the City, Book 1
- Written by: Armistead Maupin
- Narrated by: Frances McDormand
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For more than three decades Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City has blazed its own trail through popular culture...from a groundbreaking newspaper serial, to a classic novel, to a television event that entranced millions around the world. The first of six novels about the denizens of the mythic apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane, Tales of the City is both a sparkling comedy of manners and an indelible portrait of an era that changed forever the way we live.
-
-
Great stories!
- By JohnS on 2023-03-08
Written by: Armistead Maupin
-
Split Tooth
- Written by: Tanya Tagaq
- Narrated by: Tanya Tagaq
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A girl grows up in Nunavut in the 1970s. She knows joy and friendship and parents' love. She knows boredom and listlessness and bullying. She knows the tedium of the everyday world and the raw, amoral power of the ice and sky, the seductive energy of the animal world. She knows the ravages of alcohol and violence at the hands of those she should be able to trust. She sees the spirits that surround her and the immense power that dwarfs all of us. When she becomes pregnant, she must navigate all this.
-
-
Beautiful, haunting and chilling. It's visceral.
- By JJNeeps on 2019-02-08
Written by: Tanya Tagaq
-
The Golem and the Jinni
- A Novel
- Written by: Helene Wecker
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 19 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Helene Wecker's dazzling debut novel tells the story of two supernatural creatures who appear mysteriously in 1899 New York. Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a strange man who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic. When her master dies at sea on the voyage from Poland, she is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York Harbor. Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire, born in the ancient Syrian Desert. Trapped in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard centuries ago, he is released accidentally by a tinsmith in a Lower Manhattan shop.
-
-
Fantastic - Amazing - Wonderful
- By PDubya on 2019-08-27
Written by: Helene Wecker
-
Late Nights on Air
- Written by: Elizabeth Hay
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Hay
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harry Boyd, a hard-bitten refugee from failure in Toronto television, has returned to a small radio station in the Canadian North. There, in Yellowknife, in the summer of 1975, he falls in love with a voice on air, though the real woman, Dido Paris, is both a surprise and even more than he imagined. Dido and Harry are part of the cast of eccentric, utterly loveable characters who form an unlikely group at the station. Their loves and longings, their rivalries and entanglements, the stories of their pasts and what brought each of them to the North form the center.
-
-
Suprised I finished this...
- By CKH Vancouver on 2023-04-01
Written by: Elizabeth Hay
-
We Had a Little Real Estate Problem
- The Unheralded Story of Native Americans & Comedy
- Written by: Kliph Nesteroff
- Narrated by: Kliph Nesteroff
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was one of the most reliable jokes in Charlie Hill’s stand-up routine: “My people are from Wisconsin. We used to be from New York. We had a little real estate problem.” In We Had a Little Real Estate Problem, acclaimed comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff focuses on one of comedy’s most significant and little-known stories: how, despite having been denied representation in the entertainment industry, Native Americans have influenced and advanced the art form.
Written by: Kliph Nesteroff
-
Flights
- Written by: Olga Tokarczuk, Jennifer Croft - translator
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chopin's heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister. A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart, and a young man slowly descends into madness when his wife and child mysteriously vanish during a vacation and just as suddenly reappear. Through these brilliantly imagined characters and stories, interwoven with haunting, playful, and revelatory meditations, Flights explores what it means to be a traveler, a wanderer, a body in motion not only through space but through time.
-
-
Fabulous story
- By Roger Perrault on 2019-02-13
Written by: Olga Tokarczuk, and others
-
Ithaca
- Written by: Claire North
- Narrated by: Catrin Walker-Booth
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seventeen years ago, King Odysseus sailed to war with Troy, taking with him every man of fighting age from the island of Ithaca. None of them has returned, and the women of Ithaca have been left behind to run the kingdom. Penelope was barely into womanhood when she wed Odysseus. Now, speculation is mounting that her husband is dead, and suitors are beginning to knock at her door. No man is strong enough to claim Odysseus' empty throne—not yet. But everyone waits for the balance of power to tip, and Penelope knows that any choice she makes could plunge Ithaca into bloody civil war.
-
-
Looking forward to the next installment
- By Linda in Nepean, Canada on 2023-03-02
Written by: Claire North
-
The House of Doors
- Written by: Tan Twan Eng
- Narrated by: David Oakes, Louise-Mai Newberry
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year is 1921. Lesley Hamlyn and her husband, Robert, a lawyer and war veteran, are living at Cassowary House on the Straits Settlement of Penang. When “Willie” Somerset Maugham, a famed writer and old friend of Robert’s, arrives for an extended visit with his secretary Gerald, the pair threatens a rift that could alter more lives than one. Maugham, one of the great novelists of his day, is beleaguered: Having long hidden his homosexuality, his unhappy and expensive marriage of convenience becomes unbearable after he loses his savings—and the freedom to travel with Gerald.
-
-
Spellbinding
- By Amazon Customer on 2024-05-14
Written by: Tan Twan Eng
-
Eleanor and Hick
- The Love Affair That Shaped a First Lady
- Written by: Susan Quinn
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1932 Eleanor Roosevelt entered the claustrophobic, duty-bound existence of the first lady with dread. By that time she had put her deep disappointment in her marriage behind her and developed an independent life - now threatened by the public role she would be forced to play. A lifeline came to her in the form of a feisty campaign reporter for the Associated Press: Lorena Hickok. Over the next 30 years, until Eleanor's death, the two women carried on an extraordinary relationship.
-
-
A good, honest story
- By Louise P. on 2023-03-24
Written by: Susan Quinn
-
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
- An Oprah’s Book Club Novel
- Written by: Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo, Karen Chilton, Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 29 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the problem of race in America, and what he called “Double Consciousness,” a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois’s words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans—the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers—Ailey carries Du Bois’s problem on her shoulders.
-
-
I wanted to like it more
- By CKH Vancouver on 2023-04-20
Written by: Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
-
A Single Thread
- A Novel
- Written by: Tracy Chevalier
- Narrated by: Fenella Woolgar
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1932. After the Great War took both her beloved brother and her fiancé, Violet Speedwell has become a "surplus woman," one of a generation doomed to a life of spinsterhood after the war killed so many young men. Yet Violet cannot reconcile herself to a life spent caring for her grieving, embittered mother. After countless meals of boiled eggs and dry toast, she saves enough to move out of her mother's place and into the town of Winchester, home to one of England's grandest cathedrals.
-
-
Lovely story of becoming independent.
- By Susan watts on 2023-12-23
Written by: Tracy Chevalier
-
Home Fire
- A Novel
- Written by: Kamila Shamsie
- Narrated by: Tania Rodrigues
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Isma is free. After years of watching out for her younger siblings in the wake of their mother's death, she's accepted an invitation from a mentor in America that allows her to resume a dream long deferred. But she can't stop worrying about Aneeka, her beautiful, headstrong sister back in London, or their brother, Parvaiz, who's disappeared in pursuit of his own dream, to prove himself to the dark legacy of the jihadist father he never knew. When he resurfaces half a globe away, Isma's worst fears are confirmed.
-
-
Simply Incredible
- By Annah on 2021-03-07
Written by: Kamila Shamsie
Publisher's Summary
WINNER OF THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A brilliantly inventive new novel about loss, growing up, and our relationship with things, by the Booker Prize-finalist author of A Tale for the Time Being
One year after the death of his beloved musician father, thirteen-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, Annabelle, 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, Benny discovers a strange new world. He falls in love with a mesmerizing 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.
With its blend of sympathetic characters, riveting plot, and vibrant engagement with everything from jazz, to climate change, to our attachment to material possessions, The Book of Form and Emptiness is classic Ruth Ozeki—bold, wise, poignant, playful, humane and heartbreaking.
What the critics say
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER
GLOBE AND MAIL BESTSELLER
TORONTO STAR BESTSELLER
GUARDIAN'S BEST FICTION OF 2021
TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2021
One of:
TIME’s “34 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2021”
The New York Times’ list of “10 new books we recommend this week”
The Globe and Mail's "Fall 2021 books preview: Pump up your autumn with these weighty reads"
Amazon's Best Books of September 2021
CBC's "33 Canadian books coming out in September we can't wait to read"
CBC's "65 Canadian works of fiction to watch for in fall 2021"
CBC’s “34 great Canadian books to check out in fall 2021”
Toronto Star's "25 books for the readers on your holiday list"
Quill & Quire's “2021 Best of Fall guide”
Los Angeles Times's "30 Books We're Most Anticipating This Fall"
Yahoo's "25 New Fall Books That’ll Turn Just About Anyone Into a Bookworm"
Vulture’s “40 Books We Can’t Wait to Read This Fall”
LitHub's "22 Novels You Need to Read This Fall"
Barnes & Noble's "Biggest Books of the Fall"
USA Today's "5 Books To Not Miss"
The Guardian’s “50 biggest books of autumn 2021"
Reader’s Digest Canada’s “8 Best Books to Give As Gifts This Year
2022, BC Book Prize's Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, Winner
2022, Women's Prize for Fiction, Winner
2023, DUBLIN Literary Award, Long-listed
“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, Booker Prize-finalist author of Cloud Atlas and Utopia Avenue)
More from the same
What listeners say about The Book of Form and Emptiness
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- MK
- 2023-06-01
Excellent
It took me a little while to fall into sync with the story & characters, but by the end it had me. All in. Beautiful & creative. The characters complex. The interweaving of coming of age, grief, trauma, modern day events, Zen philosophy, education, medicine, friendship, love, acceptance, family … it’s all there. A beautiful book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 2022-01-30
Great read.
Loved it. Narration was excellent. Inspiring to me as a reader and a writer.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- VH
- 2023-10-15
mesmerizing
What a beautifully woven and heart-breaking story, with perfect narration, including the author's voice herself.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Joseph H. Clarke
- 2022-08-20
Compelling
The narrator of the audio book is excellent. The story is full of wisdom and kindness, but—and this is a crucial but—it can be an uncomfortable ride. And yet it is the struggle that makes the tale a compelling one.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Julian Paquette
- 2022-05-31
A masterpiece
This is a literary masterpiece and one of the best stories I have ever read/listened to.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 2022-02-13
Read it if you can
If you’re able to read a hard copy of this book, I highly recommend. It’s such a beautiful story that begs to be read on paper. The audio version just doesn’t do it justice!!!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!