Book Club Guide

The Book of Form and Emptiness

by Ruth Ozeki · 2021 · Literary Fiction

Key themes

Grief made literal — a boy who hears the voices of objects
The library as sanctuary — and the book that is somehow about you
Mental health, neurodivergence and what gets pathologised

About this book

After his father's death, thirteen-year-old Benny begins hearing voices from objects around him — and finds refuge in the public library, where a mysterious book seems to be narrating his own life. Ozeki's Women's Prize-winning novel is about grief, mental health, consumerism and the objects that accumulate around loss.

Published in 2021, The Book of Form and Emptiness won the Women's Prize for Fiction. Ozeki is also a Zen Buddhist priest, and the novel's concerns with consciousness, objects and impermanence draw on Buddhist philosophy.

Discussion questions

Benny begins hearing voices from objects after his father's death. How does Ozeki develop this — as mental illness, as genuine perception, or as something the novel deliberately refuses to resolve?
The novel includes a 'Book' that narrates and comments on Benny's story — a metafictional device. What does this achieve — and how does it relate to the novel's themes about objects, narrative and consciousness?
Benny's mother is a hoarder, and the accumulation of objects in their home becomes its own form of grief made visible. How does Ozeki develop this relationship between things and loss?
The library is presented as a place of refuge and community for people on the margins. What is Ozeki saying about institutions that hold space for those society doesn't know what to do with?
The Book of Form and Emptiness won the Women's Prize for Fiction. What does it do that earns this recognition — and how does it handle mental health with both seriousness and tenderness?