The Reading List

The jangling of the telephone interrupts Mukesh’s quiet. It is Nilakshi, who offers to come over Saturday and make dinner. Mukesh agrees to the offer, even though he is still reading Rebecca, the story of a newly married woman who feels the ghost of her husband’s first wife lingering in the household. When he goes to temple and friends ask about Nilakshi, Mukesh gets the feeling he is now the subject of gossip. He finds out the temple friends believe he is “dating again” (151), although he is unsure what that implies. Rebecca starts to speak to him: “Why was this book doing this to him? What did it want from him?” (151).

It is 2017. Joseph seeks the refuge of the library after school. He is bullied in school and relishes the quiet sanctuary of the library. He often settles down to a book and seldom looks up until it is time to go home.

Today he is aware of someone sitting down just across from him. He stares at the pages of his book. He is aware of a pair of old hands, wrinkled and crossed by veins, quietly slipping a folded piece of paper into a book and then sliding the book over to him. He has never heard of the book, Life of Pi. The back cover describes it as an adventure story of a 16-year-old stranded on a boat in the middle of the ocean with only a tiger, a hyena, an orangutan, and a zebra for friends. Somehow, he knows the mysterious stranger left that book for him. He retrieves the note, a list of eight books.

As Aleisha is finishing The Kite Runner, she wants to talk to someone—the book was emotionally devastating, very sad, but it offers the hope of redemption in putting the past in the past. Aidan agrees that the book carries the message of “[m]aking amends and meaning it before it is too late.” (158). The next day at the library front desk, Aleisha is overwhelmed recalling the characters. She is crying when Mukesh comes up to the desk. She recommends the book but warns him it is sad. Given Mukesh’s grateful interest in the new title, Aleisha thinks back to their first encounter when she was so rude. She takes satisfaction in knowing that she has righted that wrong, much like Amir in the novel.

It is Saturday. Nilakshi bustles about Mukesh’s kitchen preparing their dinner. Their conversation is awkward, as Mukesh is still not sure how to characterize their relationship. He shares with Nilakshi his new interest in reading, but that conversation is stilted too, since Mukesh has had no real company for close to two years. He stares at the portrait of Naina on the wall and thinks of the lonely, haunted hallways of Manderley.

Even as she settles down to begin Life of Pi, Aleisha worries over Aidan. He is not sleeping much and is hanging around many of Aleisha’s old friends from school. That night, left with her mother, Aleisha offers to read to her. Although Leilah gets confused over the premise of a boy and a tiger afloat in a boat in the ocean, she settles in to Aleisha’s gentle reading. The moment brings back memories of when she was a child and Aleisha would listen to her mother read to her under the covers at night. Aleisha feels like a spell is cast over the room. At that moment, when the two are brought together by the book, Aleisha feels the novel come to life. It is Leilah, however, who asks the questions that nags at Aleisha: Who actually wrote the original list of eight books?

It is 2018. A harried mother hustles her son into a grocery store to shop. The mother knows her son likes to reach for grapes to snack on, even though it is shoplifting. Today, however, the mother sees in the rack of grapes a piece of paper neatly folded. She assumes it is a shopping list left accidentally by another patron. She is surprised to see it is a list: of movie titles, she thinks, or maybe books. She knows some of the titles and, impulsively, she snaps a picture of the list before returning the folded paper to the grape rack.

At Aleisha’s encouragement, Mukesh prepares for an adventure: He is going to take Priya to central London, a trip of about 10 miles. Aleisha reassures him that Priya is old enough to respond to the magic energy of the city and tells Mukesh that he himself needs to get out of Wembley. Aleisha gifts him Life of Pi, which she tells him is about “someone being forced out of their comfort zone” (184).

The subway trip to London is exhilarating for Mukesh and Priya. Mukesh feels the excitement and energy of the train. When they get to London, Mukesh knows where they will go: to a large and vibrant bookshop. There, Mukesh gives the clerk the reading list and gifts Priya copies of the entire list of books. Priya is stunned—Mukesh tells her that her grandmother loved to read. Mukesh feels suddenly close to Naina: “She was back. She had come back to him, for the briefest of moments” (192).

Mukesh and Priya stop at the bookshop’s bakery and talk at length about the books on the list. In the process, Mukesh shares with Priya a story about his own days growing up in Kenya. He feels the warmth of his granddaughter’s friendship as she listens, and the approval of Naina herself, “her face aglow, her smile iridescent” (192).

Indira struggles with the news that one of her few friends is moving. Feeling suddenly alone, she heads to the library with the reading list determined to find a distraction from her sudden sadness. She asks the librarian at the front desk to help her find the books on the list she shows him. The man is happy to oblige and even invites Indira to come to the once-monthly book club that the library sponsors.