The Reading List

Mukesh enjoys reading Little Women, a story about the fun and imaginative March sisters and how supportive the family is. Mukesh understands that since Naina’s death, he has separated himself from his own family. He resolves to make up for the neglect by hosting a big family dinner. He feels Naina is proud of him. He heads out, up the hill to the grocery store, telling himself over and over that he can do this.

That night, when his daughters each arrive, he is in command of the evening meal. As they eat, Priya chats amiably with Mukesh about To Kill a Mockingbird. She understands the book’s difficult theme: how wrong it is to hurt someone innocent. Mukesh is proud: “Here his granddaughter was, no longer locked in her own thoughts, in her own world” (283).

Aleisha is having a troubling dream. She is walking through the woods with her father. Aleisha is terrified she might get left alone and tries to keep up with her father. Their surroundings shift to a sandy beach, and Aleisha feels her tiny feet sink into the wet sand. She is aware of a seal ahead of them. To her horror, the seal has a gaping bullet hole in its side. Trying to comfort her, her father tells her not to be upset: “Things die all the time” (287).

The scene then shifts to sometime later, in real life: She is talking to a police investigator in the living room. Aidan has been struck by a train; he is dead. Aleisha is certain her brother jumped and struggles to sort through the last few days for some logic, some reason.

When Mukesh visits the library, he asks about Aleisha but gets no answers, only vague references to a “family emergency” (290). He returns Little Women, thinking for some reason about the death of Beth March in the book. He checks out his new book, Toni Morrison’s Beloved. He convinces the librarian on duty to give him Aleisha’s home address. He arrives at the house and sees all the windows and doors closed up and curtained. He thinks of the haunted house of Manderley and wonders where Aleisha is.

Aleisha faces the difficult task of telling her mother about Aidan’s death. She sees the enormity of the emotional pain and how her mother will never believe something “like this could happen” (298). Aleisha tries to summon the quiet, gentle wisdom of Atticus Finch, but she cannot find that strength. She holds her mother’s hands and just tells her that Aidan is dead, “gone forever” (299).

Mukesh has not heard from Aleisha for days. He reads Beloved, accepting, against plausibility and logic, the idea of a ghost child returning to her family as another person. He understands the idea of a house where no one visits, a house haunted by the past. He wants to reassure the character of Sethe, to tell her that she is “alive and vibrant […] and ready for life” (302).

Finally, Aleisha calls. She asks to meet him in the park near the library. Mukesh hurries off. Aleisha tells a shocked Mukesh how her brother jumped in front of a train. She blames herself for being too involved with books and ignoring her brother’s pain: “I was crying over people who didn’t even exist” (304). Mukesh does not know what to say.

He remembers the first few days after Naina’s death and how lost and angry he felt. He tries to distract her and asks about Little Women only to be met with Aleisha’s scorn: “I’ve spent too much time in books” (306). Trying to help, Mukesh leaves her a copy of The Time Traveler’s Wife, the book that began his healing.

Aleisha takes a phone call from her estranged father and reassures him that she and her mother are doing the best they can. She lingers over Aidan’s framed photo and asks herself whether he jumped or if she, through her neglect, had all but pushed him in front of that train. On impulse, she walks down to the train station where Aidan died, hoping she might feel closer to her lost brother. She finds a gathering of flowers and cards left in Aidan’s memory. She returns home and goes to her mother’s bed and climbs in—she holds her mother tightly, sobbing.

Days after Aidan’s death, Aleisha prepares to go to the crematorium with her family and a few friends. She has not slept much. She keeps seeing Aidan in crowds, in shops, on the sidewalk. Aleisha is surprised—and touched—to see Mukesh and his granddaughter Priya at the service. At the service, a friend reads a happy poem Aidan wrote when he was eight: “Behind every gray sky / There’s always some blue” (314).

After the modest reception, Aleisha returns home with Leilah. Her mother says little and picks at her skin, “slowly at first but then frantically” (316). That night, Leilah “screams herself to sleep” (316).

Several days later, Mukesh is surprised to find Aleisha back at her desk in the library. Tentatively, he asks about Beloved—but Aleisha tells him that in committing so much time to books, she neglected to pay attention to her own life. Mukesh gently assures Aleisha that sometimes books teach people how to live, to see life differently—books are not just for escape.

Aleisha is upset over how many of Aidan’s friends post remembrances and photos of her brother. She is shocked to see Aidan all over social media. Mukesh assures her the friends are trying to express their grief. He decides to leave her at her desk and seeks out a corner of the library to read Beloved.

An idea hits him, “a bolt from the blue” (322). He hurries over to Aleisha and suggests having the library sponsor a community book day in Aidan’s memory. They could use the event to help raise money for the library. The community could come out in support of their library and at the same time celebrate Aidan’s memory. They could serve refreshments and help boost membership at the library “[t]o help more people feel a little bit less lonely” (324). Mukesh is certain that Naina would love the idea. Suddenly, he feels “completely and utterly brand new” (325).

Though she is uncertain whether Aidan would have appreciated having an open house in his honor, Aleisha becomes more involved with the idea, certain she might find some element of peace in the community project. The library staff respond positively; the open house might show the community there is so much more to a library than shelves of books. But there is much work to do.

Mukesh agrees to distribute flyers about the neighborhood for the open house. Zac designs them—they are eye-catching and full of energy. Distributing the flyers is completely outside Mukesh’s comfort zone, as it involves chitchatting with people he barely recognizes. But it is for a good cause. Mukesh begins at the mandir and ends up walking along the shops and restaurants of his neighborhood handing out the flyers.

By Tuesday, the night before the community event, Mukesh’s entire family is helping out, making food trays at Mukesh’s home. He cannot remember his home ever being so busy. As she sets up tables at the library, Aleisha begins to think of the library as a home. She thinks about how books change each time someone reads them. She hopes her mother will come to the event.

The night before the community event, Aleisha struggles to sleep. Preparations for the event have exhausted her, and she is too keyed-up to sleep. She comes across the copy of The Time Traveler’s Wife that Mukesh gave her days ago. It is a book Aidan loved. She opens the book, “force[s] her mind to go quiet” (340), and reads the first line, hoping maybe to find some avenue to Aidan.

She wonders what will happen tomorrow. She is also worried by the fact that the library seems to be struggling financially. Friends have posted announcements on social media, assuring her that “[p]eople actually care” (345). As she falls asleep, she hopes her mother might decide to come to the open house.

Mukesh heads out for the library event, accompanied by his daughters and his granddaughter.

They arrive at the library 20 minutes before the event is to start. People are already gathering: over 40, which is more than Mukesh hoped for. Amid the chatter and laughter and the eating and drinking, Mukesh feels a wonderful calm wash over him. He would never have imagined being here a month ago. At the peak of the festivities, Mukesh sees Zac drive up, his mother in the front seat with him.

Aleisha gets caught up in the excitement of the open house. She sees friends of the library she has not seen in a while. Zac arrives with a vegetarian casserole, and Aleisha thanks him for coming. Mukesh makes a brief speech thanking everyone for coming and proposes that the library host similar events to remind Wembley of how the library is part of their history. He pauses, his eyes watering, and remembers Naina and her love of reading. He talks about how the library has helped him feel closer to his community.

As he completes his remarks, in the glitter of the late-morning sun, he imagines he sees all the characters from the books he read, and with them, smiling and happy, Naina herself.

Mukesh briefly chats with Aleisha and assures her that he will be in the next day for a new recommendation. Aleisha quietly thanks him.

When Aleisha arrives back home, Leilah apologizes for not coming to the event: “I tried, but I just couldn’t” (360). Sheepishly, she tells Aleisha she has signed up to be a library member and has reserved To Kill a Mockingbird, one of Aidan’s favorites. She tells Aleisha she wants to seek a doctor’s help and that she wants to get better.

Happily, Aleisha takes up the last book on the list: A Suitable Boy, an intimidating 1,000-pager. The opening pages, set at a Hindu wedding, immediately coax Aleisha and her mother in. It is only after she has started reading it to her mother that Aleisha notices an envelope in the book, addressed to Mukesh. She recognizes the handwriting from the reading list.

Aleisha arrives at Mukesh’s flat. She begins by admitting that the reading list she’s been using is not actually hers but one she found in a library book. She hands Mukesh the envelope and tells him she is sure the list is from Naina. She leaves.

It is 2017. Naina faces the last days of her cancer treatment. She has been busy dropping off copies of her reading list, scattering them about the neighborhood. “Books,” she is certain, “[have] the power to heal” (365). The list was Priya’s idea. Priya, who struggled to understand that her grandmother was going to go away, asked her for a list of books she might like. Naina listed eight books that had given her comfort, spiritual peace, an escape, and an opportunity to “love more powerfully” (365).

She worries over Mukesh and how he will handle her death. She saves the last list for him, knowing he is not much of a reader. She does not want him to cut himself off from the world, and she hopes he might find company in the pages of these wonderful books. She writes the note she will leave in A Suitable Boy, which tells Mukesh to be of good spirits, to remember their years together, and to know she loves him more than she has ever been able to say. She encourages him to be caring, to be open to life, and to find family “in the most unexpected places” (367).