The Reading List

Introduction

Sara Misha Adams’s The Reading List (2021) is a heartwarming novel about a list of recommended novels, left mysteriously in a library book, that comes to circulate among the patrons of a small branch library in the West London suburb of Wembley. The novel celebrates the old-school joys of reading: the act of getting involved emotionally with stories about made-up people doing made-up things. Marginalized in a world of a-literates—those who know how to read but, too entranced by the fetching lure of gadgets, opt not to—books can still create communities of sympathetic souls. The Reading List, Adams’s first novel, became an improbable international bestseller, helped not only by generous critical reviews but also by buzz on social media, where readers hailed Adams’s ability to capture the simple magic of reading.

The novel chronicles the unlikely friendship between Mukesh Patel, a quiet, mild-mannered 70-something widower, and Aleisha Thomas, a whip-smart teenager drifting indifferently through her summer job at the Wembley library before she heads off to university to study law. Although neither one is much of a reader, the two together read all eight books on that mysterious list. Those books illuminate the joys and sorrows, agonies and ironies of the emotional lives of both characters. The two create a unique friendship, one that is tested when Aleisha is faced with the tragic death of her brother. Told from the shifting narrative perspectives of both Aleisha and Mukesh with interchapters focused on library patrons, the novel explores The Transformative Impact of Stories, The Reward of Intergenerational Friendship, The Difficult Process of Handling Grief, and The Importance of Libraries and Bookshops in this technological age.

This study guide uses the 2021 HarperCollins paperback edition.

Content warning: Both The Reading List and this guide contain references to death by suicide.

Plot Summary

It has been two years since the death of Naina, the vibrant and loving wife of Mukesh Patel, a retired railroad ticket taker who now lives alone in Wembley, West London. Although his three grown daughters—Rohini, Deepali, and Vritti—stay in touch, their lives are busy, and Mukesh is alone most of the time. He is content to go to the neighborhood mandir (temple) for prayer but otherwise stays at home and watches his beloved nature documentaries. His granddaughter, Priya, sometimes visits, but she is always absorbed in a book; she used to bond with Naina, who was an avid reader herself.

In sorting through Naina’s things, Mukesh happens to finds a delinquent library book: Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife. On impulse, he reads it and finds it, to his surprise, wonderfully engaging. He stops by the neighborhood library to return the long overdue book and asks about others, as he wants to try and better understand his late wife’s love of books. The inexplicably rude librarian has no patience with his queries; confused and hurt, Mukesh retreats from the library.

The librarian, 17-year-old Aleisha, is a part-timer, working for the summer until she goes off to study law. She is bored by the job. She is there largely to help her older brother, Aidan, with money to tend to their mother, who is still struggling with the abrupt departure of Aleisha’s father seven years ago. With long hours and few patrons, the library offers little—and, ironically, Aleisha is no reader. However, she immediately regrets the unpleasantness with the old man and is determined to right her rudeness.

That day, as she works the shelves, she happens to find a list of books on a piece of paper left in a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. The list recommends eight titles: in addition to the Harper Lee book, there’s Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, and Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy. The list offers no logic or explanation for the selections, just the titles. Aleisha decides to use the summer to read the list and to share it with the old man. She wants to challenge him to read the titles with her.

Over the next several weeks, the two of them strike up an improbable friendship as they share the experiences of reading the books. Not only do the books and their characters give the lonely Aleisha and Mukesh something to talk about, but the characters’ lives also illuminate their own emotional struggles. Mukesh bonds with Priya, offering her the books; Aleisha reads to her mother each night, which calms and comforts her. Each book, in turn, offers wisdom about matters of the heart: how families operate, what individuality means, and what creativity can mean, all themes both Mukesh and Aleisha find relevant to their own lives.

The sudden suicide of Aleisha’s brother, Aidan, threatens to destroy the new friendship. A distraught Aleisha sees books as trivial escapes. Gently, Mukesh, who knows all too well the despair of grief, counsels his young friend to trust in books and to let their friendship help her through her loss. Mukesh then suggests holding an open house for the library in Aidan’s honor, a joyous community event that brings Aleisha back from her sorrow. It is revealed that it was Naina who created the reading list: Understanding the gravity of her cancer diagnosis two years earlier, Naina left copies of it around her neighborhood as a way to share her love of reading with the friends and family she was leaving behind.