The Reading List

“Naina had died. But this book felt like one little glimpse into her soul, into their love, their life together. A snapshot of the early days of their marriage when they were still strangers to each other.”

Mukesh unexpectedly connects to a novel his wife never returned to the library. The Time Traveler’s Wife, so completely out of Mukesh’s comfort zone, opens him up to a story of the power of love, even a doomed, star-crossed love. This is the moment Mukesh, who previously only enjoyed nature documentaries, first experiences The Transformative Impact of Stories.

“Here it was, her olive branch.”

The improbable discovery of The Reward of Intergenerational Friendship between Mukesh and Aleisha begins at this moment: when Aleisha regrets treating the old man so unprofessionally and decides to offer him the reading list she’d found. Neither of them know that it is Naina’s list. This moment suggests the serendipitous magic of books bringing people, even two so disparate as Mukesh and Aleisha, together.

“Aidan stayed silent. He was wiping down the surfaces, but they were already spotless.”

In contrast to Mukesh and Aleisha, who joyfully discover the magic of reading and grow their bond as they explore the novels on the reading list, Aidan quietly slips further into depression. This moment, where he cleans “already spotless” surfaces, indicates a disconnect from reality; he is not focused on what he is doing, caught up in his own mind.

“As they wandered toward the door, Mukesh knelt down with difficulty to say goodbye to Priya, his little girl who was not so little after all, but she walked straight past him and jumped into the car, ready to go home.”

Early in the book, Mukesh struggles to connect to Priya, who is a combination of Naina and Aleisha: book-loving and emotionally closed off. Though Mukesh’s primary motivation for reading is to better understand the late Naina, he eventually realizes that books are the best way to bond with his granddaughter, too. They have not yet had this moment; for now, Priya is not aware that Mukesh is slowly learning the magic of storytelling.

“She noticed how this book was allowing her to step into two worlds: the world she was in right now, beside her mum, in her house, the air muggy from the heat of the day, and another world. The world of two children, Scout and her old brother, Jem, who lived somewhere called Maycomb, a small town in Alabama.”

Not much of a reader and preparing to study law, a discipline with little tolerance for the distractions of storytelling, Aleisha experiences the transformative impact of stories for the first time while reading To Kill a Mockingbird. The sensation of experiencing two different worlds—real life and a novel’s setting—is new to Aleisha and offers her a promising escape from the stress of her real life. At the same time, it is a way of bonding with her mother, which furthers Adams’s message of the connections that books can create.

“The reading list remained screwed up and forgotten in the plastic bag for a long time, taken to and from the mandir every week. But, at just the right time, it would find its way out.”

The novel, in both the Interludes and in the chapters dealing with Mukesh and Aleisha, suggests that Naina’s list takes on a life of its own. In the Interludes, the novel recounts how Naina, her life ending, strives to share how much books have given her. The multiple copies of the list that she scatters around Wembley are designed as much for the patrons of the library she came to love as for her friends and neighbors. She hopes only that the lists find their way to “willing hands and hearts” (365).

“It was strange, the idea that this book wasn’t just for him, it was for everyone. All these people who had taken it out before him, people who would take it out after him […] Every reader unknowingly connected in some small way.”

Mukesh begins to perceive the reach of books through the network of the public libraries. This speaks to him, someone who worked for many years on railways, which are similarly interconnected. No book comes to his hands without connecting him to everyone else who has checked it out. This concept touches Mukesh, who has been isolated for two years, and reveals The Importance of Libraries and Bookshops for individuals and communities.

“What’s your dream?”

Aleisha knows how much Aidan has given up to be the family’s de facto father. Aleisha wants to assure herself that Aidan’s dream of owning a car shop might not be entirely lost, but she does not get the answer she hopes for when Aidan tells her he is dedicated to her and their mother. Aidan’s lack of a self-focused response foreshadows his death by suicide, as it shows he lacks any vision of his own future.

“The year that began without Naina and would end without Naina. He opened his copy of Rebecca. Even though the book had scared him half to death, he needed to be somewhere else for a while, beyond the confines of his little Wembley home, walking in someone else’s skin.”

For both Aleisha and Mukesh, the initial attraction of reading is the chance to be somewhere else. Discontent in their own lives, both are drawn to the promise of escapism. Over time, however, both come to recognize that there is more to books than just the ability to hide from the world; in fact, books teach them how to better understand and cope with their real lives.

“Joseph knew the feeling, the feeling of wanting, needing, to be as small as possible, invisible. He laid the book on the table. Somehow, he knew this book had been left there deliberately for him.”

In a flashback Interlude, Naina sees a schoolboy named Joseph cowering in the library, obviously there to escape from something outside. She decides he could benefit from the story of Pi; Joseph, despite not speaking to Naina, feels an intrinsic connection to the story. This speaks to the transformative impact of stories and the invisible bonds that form between readers. They do not need to exchange words, nor to know the details of each other’s lives; they need only recognize something in each other to form a kinship.

“Eventually Leilah nodded; Aleisha allowed herself a deep exhale. Feeling thoroughly exposed, she cleared her throat and began. Leilah didn’t take her eyes off her daughter.”

The concept of the bedtime story is often applied to parents reading to children. This scene flips those roles as Aleisha prepares to read Life of Pi to her mother. This gives insight into the current state of the Thomas household and shows just how much Aleisha has been forced to mature—how much of her youth she has sacrificed in caring for her mother like a parent. The two come to find in these nightly sessions a bonding in a way that silent sustained reading cannot affirm.

“She didn’t want to think about whether this moment, this feeling, her own and Leilah’s, would last until morning. She could never recreate this moment, but […] She believed the book […] and the list […] might bring her mother back to her.”

Reading calms Leilah, allowing her fall into a deep, untroubled sleep. This brings hope to Aleisha for the first time in ages—hope that her mother might return to being who she once was. The books on the list have transcended entertainment; they are now a vital part of Aleisha’s life, a possible cure for Leilah.

“Tables and tables. Piles and piles of books. It was as though they were floating all around him, as if lifted up by some kind of magic, offering up new worlds, new experiences. It was beautiful.”

The interlude that Mukesh and Priya spend in this London bookshop is a moment of magic for both of them and speaks to the importance of libraries and bookshops. Mukesh and Priya share the experience of being charmed and enthralled by the promise of countless rich, magnificent stories. The bookshop offers the magic of books: the magic of the imagination.

“She could hear the pacing clearly now, as well as a soft, choked sobbing. Her heart crashed to the pit of her stomach. Part of her wanted to rush in, envelop her brother in a hug. But the other part of her, the cowardly part, told her that he’d hate that.”

Aidan is isolated from the novel’s larger movement toward healing. Engaged in her summer of reading and entranced by her new relationships outside of her family, Aleisha decides not to intrude on her brother having yet another long and difficult night. Just days later, this moment will trigger Aleisha’s guilt, as she believes she neglected Aidan’s quiet cries for help.

“You have to move on with life […] Grief can trap you for a while, and you have to be bold to step out of your comfort zone.”

The Mukesh who begins the novel would have been unable to say this, much less act on it. Through the influence of novels—on a list his own wife created—Mukesh began The Difficult Process of Handling Grief, and he shows his progress here. After being isolated for so long, Mukesh is determined to step free of his comfort zone.

“I know. But you’ll do fine without me. Whatever you’re doing with Mum, it’s really working.”

These are Aidan’s heartbreaking last words to Aleisha, though she does not know it. Aidan feels helpless to address the traumas and sorrows of his beloved family, and he feels his absence would make their lives better, happier. There is tragic irony in his words—he urges Aleisha to continue using books to “save” their mother, when he has surpassed the point of being saved himself.

“Naina is always here.”

In the narratives of Mukesh and Aleisha, as well as in the novels on Naina’s list, the dead inhabit a special place around the living. Naina’s lingering presence was, at first, a sign of Mukesh’s inability to move on from the past. Now, after using novels to process his grief, Naina is a benevolent and loving presence, rather than an overbearing memory.

“This was everything he wanted. Here his granddaughter was no longer locked into her own thoughts in her own little world […] Now he knew that Scout, Atticus, and Jem were as real to Priya, and to him, as her own family. Now he understood.”

Mukesh finally breaks through to his granddaughter, not by intruding on her moments in books, but rather by respecting what young Priya understands: the way in which fictional characters become real. In sharing that epiphany, Mukesh truly bonds with his granddaughter and experiences the reward of intergenerational friendship.

“She saw it wasn’t a perfect seal. It had a hole in its side, flies were buzzing around it, and the sun hit its skin just a moment, long enough for her to notice the flesh around the hole starting to draw blood, weeping with some other liquid that wasn’t blood, but wasn’t water either.”

The night that Aidan dies by suicide, Aleisha has this disturbing dream. The dead seal is a startling image, a foreshadowing of the shock Aleisha will undergo. The detailing is graphic and particular, foreshadowing the hard reality of Aidan’s messy death—a death that Aleisha’s magical books cannot alleviate.

“Everything would be fine, everything would be normal.

Nothing would be normal again.”

In Aidan’s death, the novel replays Mukesh’s experience of losing Naina two years earlier. The wound is fresh, and Aleisha struggles to tell Leilah, who has severe mental-health conditions, news she knows Leilah will not be able to bear. As Aleisha fears, Leilah violently rejects her reality; this is the novel’s lowest point, after which Leilah and Aleisha begin the difficult process of handling grief.

“I don’t want to think about books anymore […] I’ve spent the whole summer living other people’s lives. I forgot to live mine.”

Aleisha blames herself for not seeing Aidan’s warning signs, for being too wrapped up in fantasy and neglecting her real life. In her grief, Aleisha rejects the transformative impact of stories; the books she once found solace in now feel like betrayal. Mukesh, emulating the wise Atticus Finch, steps in and counsels her; he tells her that she is not to blame and that books can help her through this difficult time. This moment shows Mukesh’s profound growth—he is no longer isolated, and he has learned to fully appreciate the power of books.

“This library had come to mean something to him. It had begun to feel like home. And a place is only what it is because of the people who make it.”

Mukesh realizes the importance of libraries and bookshops, particularly in his own life. He does not use the word “home” lightly—it was the death of his wife and the loneliness of his home that prompted him to make his first foray into the library. A library, he now knows, is more than the building, more than the books: It is a community, something he has learned to treasure.

“That was what her brother could do—bring people together, as he had always brought people together in his lifetime. To help them feel a little less alone.”

The novel celebrates bringing people together in various places and ways. Loneliness cannot be the last word. Aidan’s compassionate heart kept his family together while he was alive; in death, he is instrumental in bringing together the Wembley neighborhood. The open house, which echoes a similar gathering in Morrison’s Beloved, offers a manifestation of the need for others.