The Reading ListReview posted June 20, 2022.
HarperAudio, 2021. 12 hours, 47 minutes.
Review written June 8, 2022, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review
2022 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#5 Fiction
This book is about a handwritten reading list that several people find in different surprising places in Wembley, a suburb of London. And then how reading those books changes people's lives.
The two central characters who get most of the book's time are Aleisha, a 17-year-old who's working at the library as a summer job, and Mukesh, an elderly Indian gentleman who lost his wife two years before. Aleisha has her own pressures as she and her older brother are trying to care for their mother, who keeps the house dark and rarely leaves her bed. Aleisha's planning to head to university and study to be a lawyer when the summer is over.
The first time Mukesh comes to the library, he encounters Aleisha, who has no recommendations for him and is quite rude. But Aleisha feels guilty, so when she finds the Reading List, she decides to read the books and then pass them on to Mukesh. Both their lives are profoundly touched.
I love the way this book highlights how a good book can affect you so deeply. Books can give you insights into your own life and even help build relationships. Besides Mukesh and Aleisha, Mukesh also gains new ground with his granddaughter through books.
I've read and loved all but three of the books on the list. Here are the books:
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Rebecca, by Daphne DuMaurier
The Kite Runner, by Kaled Hosseini
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
Beloved, by Toni Morrison
A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth
The book The Time Traveler's Wife is also featured.
The three I haven't read are The Kite Runner, Beloved, and A Suitable Boy. Now I want to go out and read those three if they're anything as good as the others.
I did laugh that my favorite on the list - Pride and Prejudice - was the least favorite of the characters in the book. Oh well! At least it got included.
So it was all a wonderful story. I particularly loved the narrator who read Mukesh's chapters. I felt like the character was talking with me and this kind elderly widower won my heart.
I did have some things that bothered me a lot about their portrayal of a library. Maybe things are different in the U.K., but I'm not really convinced they are.
First, a student working in the library for the summer is not called a librarian. A librarian is someone with a master's degree in library science. Although a customer might mistakenly call such a person a librarian, the workers would not perpetuate that mistake.
Next, this poor hardly-occupied library needed library outsiders - Mukesh and Aleisha - to come up with an idea to "save" it - by having a program! A program where the community gets together. That's all well and good and they had a very nice reason for it. But come on, is the author aware that most libraries have a full schedule of programs to engage their communities? It's not actually a novel idea.
I did think it was interesting that while they talked about a few regulars, that particular library didn't have any patrons experiencing homelessness. Maybe that's not a problem in England? Of course, the library in the book was much, much less frequented than the one where I work. We get more than 800 customers on a typical day. I know there are libraries that don't get so many, but the portrayal - in a book reminding us how reading can change lives - made me wince a little bit.
I also really wondered how the books on the list were chosen. It was interesting that there was only one children's book - Little Women - and it's a very old children's book, set in 1860s America. But that of course got me thinking: If I were to make a list of my favorite books, books that had power to move people deeply and affect their lives and relationships, which books would I choose?