NCCS Fiction Book Group: A Tale for the Time Being

The NCCS Fiction Book Group meets at The Vat & Fiddle on Wednesday 21 October, with Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being on the table. It's a monthly thing run by the Nottingham Culture Cafe & Sci, and this one was nominated by Izzy. The book is 448 pages, so there's plenty to get your teeth into if you're coming prepared.

It's a bit of a double-story. On one side, there's Nao, a lonely sixteen-year-old in Tokyo who's keeping a diary to document her great-grandmother's life. On the other, Ruth, a novelist living on a remote Canadian island, who finds that diary washed up on the shore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox after the 2011 tsunami. As Ruth gets drawn into Nao's turbulent world and her uncertain fate, the novel pulls in time, memory, quantum physics, and the connection between writer and reader. It's the kind of book that gives you a fair few threads to pull on during a group discussion.

The group meets in the function room to the left of the bar, and the evening usually doesn't end when the discussion does — members often drift back into the main bar for a social catch-up afterwards. It's as much about the chat as the book, so if you're new to the group, it's a good way to meet people who read the same things you do.

It starts at 19:30 and runs for about 90 minutes. Your first session is free; after that, regulars chip in £1 in cash to help cover the pub's £10 room hire fee. The Vat & Fiddle is on Queens Bridge Road, NG2 1NB.