There’s nothing wrong with preaching to the choir now and then, and that’s what The Reading List does. It’s a cozy, warm-hearted book about the power of books to inspire and connect, so it’s not hard to see why booklovers would want to read it. It’s also not hard to see how debut author Sara Nisha Adams was inspired by her own experiences of connecting with her grandfather through a shared love of literature.

The Reading List - Sara Nisha Adams - Keeping Up With The Penguins
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At the beginning of The Reading List, we’re introduced to two people living very different lives in the suburb of Wembley in London. Mukesh is a widower living a life of quiet grief in the absence of his late wife, constantly fussed over by his three daughters and increasingly baffled by his faltering attempts to connect with his bookworm granddaughter. Aleisha is in her late teens, working in her local library (a job she only took because a retail position at Top Shop was already taken), gradually becoming more isolated from her friends as her mother’s mental illness takes its toll on the family.

Mukesh heads to the library, where Aleisha works, in the hopes of finding a book to read – maybe it will help him feel closer to his late wife, or failing that, give him something to talk to his granddaughter about. Aleisha is rather rude to him, but has the decency to feel quite guilty about it afterwards. When she finds a list scribbled on a piece of paper slipped into a copy of a library book, she realises it’s a list of book recommendations – exactly the thing Mukesh was after before she brushed him off. She decides to read the books herself, and recommend them one by one to Mukesh, to make amends.

Of course, you’re wondering by now which books make the cut for the titular reading list. Don’t worry, it’s not a spoiler, so I’ll give them to you here:

So, I guess the first thing you need to know is that The Reading List is not a book about book lovers. It’s more a book about people taking their first tentative steps towards becoming recreational readers (which makes the fact that one of the characters is supposed to be a librarian quite strange – find me a real life librarian who’s not a reader and I’ll eat my hat). So, it’s not exactly relatable for the audience it’s likely to draw in, who (I assume) would largely be die-hard bookworms already.

Secondly, The Reading List feels like a very unrealistic portrayal of what it’s like to work in a library. I don’t know any librarian who has time to feel bored on the job, let alone time to sit back and read. The budget cuts and ever-looming threat of branch closure felt all-too-real, though.

Thirdly, The Reading List turns into a bit of a mystery, which isn’t really signposted until towards the end. There’s a Big Reveal as to who wrote and distributed the reading list, but it feels like an answer to a question that I wasn’t really asking? I would’ve happily read this one assuming that the list was just a nice little nod from the universe, a convenient conceit for a cozy novel, without needing its origins to be revealed at all.

Oh, and there aren’t any content warnings on the cover or the opening pages, but there’s a very intense suicide, which definitely warrants one.

All of this might be making me sound like a cynical snot, which is definitely not in the spirit of The Reading List. I will concede that when Mukesh and Aleisha connect, their interactions are very sweet, and I love the friendship that forms between them. Both of them are grieving in their own way (Mukesh his wife, and Aleisha the youth and home life she could have had if not for her mother’s illness), and books are a wonderful escape for both of them, as well as an opportunity to find the common ground and support they need from others to get through the tough times.

And, naturally, it inspired me to compose my own version of the reading list, books I would recommend to bring people together and offer windows into different worlds:

The Reading List is very earnest, a little saccharine, occasionally wistful, and mostly cozy – but, most importantly, it’s a testament to the importance of libraries and access to stories. It’s one to pick up when you want a feel-good read that won’t challenge your mind too much.

Read The Reading List on audiobook via Libro.fm here. (affiliate link)

My favourite Amazon reviews of The Reading List:

  • “It is so boring , nothing happens , just words and more words on paper!” – Shopping is a hobby too
  • “The whinging mother who falls apart after her husband departs (who can blame him?) needs a kick up the backside – I wanted to scream “man up/woman up – fg swhats the matter with you. Her awful lacking-depth children and one suicide – where did that come from? The only remotely interesting bit was the mention of the other books – though if these people cant learn from life they cant learn from these novels. Straight to the charity shop.” – M. Johnson
  • “This book is good for one thing. The bin! Poor prose. Weak storyline with characters that all seem pathetic. If I could give it less than one star, I would.” – C A
  • “Too bad this writer thinks, “Pride and Prejudice” is cheesy and her characters wont be able to relate to Regency women while having no trouble relating to boys on boats with tigers.” – Della

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