The Reading List

 Sara Nisha Adams

This is another sad book

It is the story of a girl Aliesha who is living with her brother and their mother who is severely depressed and always needs to have one of her kids present to look after her.  The mother seems to prefer the son and Aliesha is very hurt by this. 

Aliesha is on summer break from school and gets a job at a local library.  She isn't a reader and just wants to listen to her music and check out books.  An elderly man, grieving the loss of his wife, finds a book she had read, The Time Travellers Wife. He is not a reader but picks it up and finds he enjoyed it. He has become very reclusive despite the urgings of his daughters.  He decides to overcome his lethargy and go to the local library and ask for another book to read. She is very rude to him and just waves him over to the stacks.The man is embarrassed and runs from the library with a drivers manual.

Aliesha is chastised for her treatment of the man.  While she is checking in books she finds a reading list of 8 quite diverse books: To Kill A Mockingbird, Rebecca, The Kite Runner, Life of Pi, Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, Beloved and A Suitable Boy.

She is able to see the man again and gives him the first book on the list she found to read.  Then she decides she better read that book and the others on the list so she can recommend other books to him.  They become friends after this and discuss the books and also share some of the sadness in their lives.

Gradually Mukesh starts to go out more including to his church and starts having his wife's best friend over for dinner.  They just want to be friends.

We learn that other people also find copies of the booklist in other places.  Mukesh buys some of the books for his young granddaughter and takes her to the library to get a library card.  This cements their friendship.

Aliesha's mother really needed treatment, not sure why they didn't get her hospitalized.  Her behaviour was a huge burden on both kids, neither of them could have a life, with friends, etc.  One day the brother, who seemed to be the strongest one in the family kills himself by jumping in front of a subway train.  The mother's reaction to the daughter is "get out... I don't want to see you again".  Totally devastating.

In the end of the book we find many people have been changed by reading the books on the list and it appears that Mukesh's wife may have been who shared the list.  Mukesh and Aleisha come up with a plan to have an event to invite people to the library for a drop in Wed. morning event with food, to promote the library, and in memory of the brother.

In the end it looks like the mother is making small steps to seek help.

The book was interesting in that it talked about books as escape but also what you can learn about life from books, but in the end it is friendship and connections with people that are most important.

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