#48// summer reading 2023

found my best book of the year

Dear Reader,

They say you become your mother as you age. I have definitely become the person asking everyone to wear sunscreen. ‘Did you wear sunscreen?’ Every bye followed by a high pitched ‘sunscreen?’ So I am asking you in a very nice way, no screams promise, to wear your sunscreen every day. I used to hate my mother asking me to wear it. But now that I am older, I know better. And you, little one, big one, all of you, wear sunscreen. It takes less than a minute of your time, and it’ll go a long way in protecting you.

Read

I’ve found the best book of 2023. Yes, it was discovered in an evening walk (where I wore sunscreen, PS: you should too) listening to the audiobook narrated by Heather Agyepong. It tells the story of twenty something Maddie who is struggling on many fronts—ill father, absent mother, unfulfilling career, no companion or love. There are many books written about twenty somethings trying to find their place in the big, bad world. But Maddie’s voice is intimate, vulnerable and stands out in a special way. She trudges through first-time sex, sexuality, insecurities, office politics, racism, cultural expectations and people-pleasing attitude.

This book made my heart ache. As a woman in my thirties, I watched Maddie make mistakes that I might have had better judgement about. I also watched her take decisions, which in spite of my age, I could not know if they are right. I was cooking dinner one evening, and suddenly thought of Maddie, like an old friend who hadn’t messaged for a while. I wasn’t able to listen to the audio book for a few days and this disconnect made me genuinely worried about her. I often found myself wondering ‘is everything going to turn alright for Maddie’, almost in the same spirit I wonder about my own doomed future. I was genuinely worried if Jessica George would give Maddie the happiness she deserves; after all she is a fictional character. But the more I thought of it, the more I acknowledged that I do not know how Maddie’s life is going to progress. And neither can I predict mine.

And so when I listened to Maame again, I cheered Maddie’s wins, wept for her heart-to-heart talks with her therapist, gently rolled eyes at the twenty something girl typing her anxiety into google (google does not know my dear, and neither do I, your reader). I loved how the novel tries to make sense of the person that Maddie is. Her mother calls her Maame, which means woman. Is it a given name to make her rise to every situation because of the burdens placed on her with an absent mother and irresponsible brother? I loved how Maddie understands the name she had conflicting thoughts about. This story dissociates parents from their parenthood and shows them as individuals with desires, ambitions, and shortcomings. I thought this was done exceptionally well. The expectations children place on parents was thought provoking. Throughout Maddie’s slightly turbulent yet ordinary life, one keeps wondering ‘what now, what next’.

Jessica George, author of Maame, got a green flag for this book after five book rejections over eight years. So if that doesn’t tell you that you’ll survive and the tides will turn in your favour one day, what will?

I also read a slow police procedural set in an insignificant village situated between Delhi and Haryana, Black River by Nilanjana Roy. Two murders, one being that of an eight-year-old girl named Munia, who was collecting jamuns. Her father Chand, who works under the richest man in the village, is heartbroken. Munia’s case is closed, but sub-inspector Ombir Singh is unsatisfied. I enjoyed how the professional and personal life merge in this story. Ombir is exhausted, sleep deprived, yet anxious about the discrepancies in Munia’s death. But he does not want to talk to his wife after hearing the news of a baby on the way. The police (Ombir and his sidekick Bhim Sain) are also affected by the collective grief of the close-knit village where the murders took place.

Rather than following a formulaic whodunnit plot, Black River moves forward slowly, noir-like, raising questions on bigger problems—the power dynamics in the village, the police departments staggering under external pressure, the communal harmony, the gradual boycotting of the services /businesses offered by the Muslim community. There are dancers, mad men, toxic mother in laws, Delhi officials, all who make an impact however small their role is. It is in the depiction of Hindu-Muslim relationships, first through the deep friendship between a younger Chand and Khalid and Rabia, then through the communal hatred springing up in the village, that makes the reader scared about the India of today. How or when did this distrust among neighbours and friends start? What’s the plight of minorities being hounded when they have an equal right to the land? Black River is a tragic story both in its rocky investigation to unveil the truth, and in the reality of India that it presents through its fictional characters. You could see how this is going to end a long way off, but still it keeps you hooked to the characters hunting for truth in a world that isn’t kind.

Summer reading list 2023

The hottest reading list is now live. I am partial to this year’s list because these books are simply FANTASTIC, perhaps a tad more fantastic than yester years’. Bookmark and enjoy!

Amazing links

How I got my brain back

Interactive : The search for my kimchi

Why have we stopped talking to strangers?

“In this way the opportunity for random, chance encounters has been removed. And an encounter, he reminds us, is so crucial because it offers the possibility to “sit with the discomfort of our differences until something new blooms out of them”. It’s how we learn to live with each other.”

Spending the night at a bookstore. It was spooky

I was glad to read this themed book list of AAPI reads that goes beyond usual recs.

One of my recent happy things is receiving emails from you after the last newsletter. My over-thinking mind wondered—Was it because I explicitly asked you to write to me in the last letter? Or because the last newsletter was a good one? (In case you missed it, I wrote about a chain smoker nun and a toxic bookseller). I’d like to think the stars aligned. Because believe it or not, each text and email was seen/read at one of my low moments, and they gave me a wonderful lift-me-up. Much like Maame/Maddie finding something relevant on Google, or receiving unexpected kindness.

Thank you, dear readers, for being so kind. I will be replying to all. But until then, my deepest thank you for taking time out from your day and writing such lovely things. I also received feedback and suggestions, and I am ever so grateful to have such a lovely community who would go out of their way to write to me constructive criticism. Thank you, daisies.

(PS: Write to me. I love hearing from you x)

Until next time,

Resh x