63 pages • 2 hours read
Sara Nisha AdamsThe Reading List
Fiction | Novel | AdultA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Parts 2-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee” - Part 3: “Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier”
Part 2, Chapter 4 Summary: “Aleisha”
Aleisha understands her responsibilities at home. Her father left the family seven years earlier and is now happily dedicated to his new family. Aidan, who once dreamed of opening his own mechanic business, put everything on hold, including his pursuit of a business degree. For seven years now, he has worked long hours at a biscuit factory. Taking care of their mother, Leilah, is Aleisha’s role—since the divorce, Leilah has seldom gone out and is prone to long episodes of depression. One morning, Aidan tells Aleisha to take the morning off, get out of the house, get some fresh air.
With nowhere particular to go, Aleisha ends up at the library. It is at first unsettling: “The walls of books began to close in on her, the spines growing larger, heavier” (49). She happens to see the returned copy of To Kill of Mockingbird with the list of books sticking out of it. She decides to commit to reading the book. Just as she is settling into the first pages, her boss interrupts her to chide her for not helping the old man who came looking for a reading recommendation. Annoyed by the reprimand, Aleisha takes the Lee novel and, without checking it out, heads out the door, ignoring the library’s alarm.
Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary: “Mukesh”
When Rohini visits Mukesh with her daughter Priya, book in tow, Mukesh uses the opportunity to try to get close to his young granddaughter. He asks what book she has; obviously annoyed, she tells him it’s Little Women before settling in to read. She seems lonely to Mukesh, who decides to go to the library and find a book she could read.
A phone call from the Temple informs Mukesh that there has been an injury among those who signed up for a charity walk. Rohini thinks it would be a splendid idea if Mukesh agreed to do the walk, that it would cheer him up. Mukesh initially rejects the idea: “I’m a widower. Lots of widowers are lonely, bored, boring […] I have my routines. I am fine” (63). His daughter insists, and Mukesh reluctantly agrees.
Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary: “Aleisha”
Heading back home, Aleisha is startled to see a guy wearing a beanie among the people on the train. She does not know him but is arrested by his features, his eyes, his stubbly growth, his bright T-shirt, and his beanie. She considers following him, enthralled by the mystery of it, when Aidan calls and tells her she needs to come home.
Aidan has to work and needs Aleisha to watch their mother. As Aleisha dutifully prepares tea, her father, Dean, calls. The call is awkward and rushed. Her father really has no time now for his “first family” (77). After the call, Aleisha curls up with Leilah and quietly reads the first pages of To Kill a Mockingbird. Before long, she and her mother fall asleep in each other’s arms.
Part 2, Chapter 7 Summary: “Mukesh”
With some trepidation, Mukesh heads out to the library. He will look for a book or two that Priya might like. He is surprised when the librarian at the front desk tells him the book he reserved is in and waiting for him: To Kill a Mockingbird. He tells the librarian there must be some mistake. He does not know it, but Aleisha arranged the reserve. Back home, he tells Rohini about the book—she is skeptical over whether Priya might be too young for the book and thinks that the book would be more for him. Mukesh imagines how pleased Naina would be with him.
Part 2, Chapter 8 Summary: “Aleisha”
Aleisha, back at the library, admits she is under the spell of To Kill a Mockingbird: “It had gotten to her” (82). She understands the complex dynamics of the brother-sister relationship in the novel and the neighbor community of the tiny town of Maycomb. She also responds to the gentle, authoritarian gravitas of the father, Atticus Finch. But now she wants to talk to someone about the book’s impact.
She is home, reading the book, when she looks out the window and thinks she sees the same guy with the beanie. He is without the beanie now—but she recognizes him. She is stunned by the coincidence, even as her mother comes up behind her and asks what she is staring at. On impulse, when her brother arrives home from work, she heads out for the library.
Part 2, Interlude Summary: “The Reading List: Indira”
It is 2017. Indira, one of Naina’s best friends, awaits Naina’s arrival at their weekly prayer session at the mandir. She dutifully racks her shoes with the others when she notices a folded piece of paper, a list of eight books. Puzzled, she returns the list to the rack. When Naina arrives, Indira cannot help but notice how the cancer treatments have left her friend gaunt and thin, although her smile still dazzles and her eyes still sparkle. Indira has no way of knowing, but this is the last time she will see her friend. Left alone for a few moments, Naina slips a folded piece of paper into the shoe rack.
Part 2, Chapter 9 Summary: “Mukesh”
It is a big day for Mukesh. He is walking with Priya to the library to check out To Kill a Mockingbird. When they arrive, Aleisha is working. She reveals that she reserved the book for him and that, perhaps, his granddaughter might like it. Priya and Aleisha meet for the first time. Mukesh is impressed by how many other library patrons have checked out the book: “Every reader, unknowingly connected in some small way. And he was about to be part of this too” (95). On the walk back, Mukesh congratulates himself on a momentous day.
Part 2, Interlude Summary: “The Reading List: Leonora”
It is 2017. Leonora, heading to her weekly yoga class, struggles to adjust to her divorce. She had joined the yoga class hoping to make new friends, but so far, she has only met a wonderfully friendly older woman whose name escapes her. As she stretches before the chakra, she peruses the community bulletin board and happens to see a reading list of eight novels. Some she recognizes; coincidentally she is reading one, Beloved. Thinking it might be a book club of some kind, she uses her phone to snap a photo of the list.
Part 2, Chapter 10 Summary: “Mukesh”
His mind abuzz from his initial reading of To Kill a Mockingbird, Mukesh is impressed by the eloquent power of Atticus Finch, a widower like himself. He identifies with Tom Robinson, the outcast, recalling when his family first arrived in Wembley from Kenya and how displaced he felt. He cannot explain it, but he feels as if Naina is there with him when he reads. He wants to talk to someone about how deeply the story of the father and his two children impresses him. At the library, Aleisha, noting Mukesh’s happy urgency, chats with him about the book. Aleisha tells Mukesh about her law-school ambitions, and Mukesh shares with Aleisha his memories of being a ticket agent at the local train station.
Before the library closes, Aleisha gives Mukesh the next book off the list: Daphne du Maurier’s gothic mystery Rebecca. Mukesh walks home certain Naina would be proud of him—in going to the library, he has stepped entirely out of his “comfort zone” (108).
Part 3, Chapter 11 Summary: “Aleisha”
Aleisha reads Rebecca alone at her home, the book’s gloom impacting her. Aidan comes in, and during their conversation, Aleisha asks him what his dream is. She knows he put everything on hold to help her and their mother, and now Aleisha is getting ready to leave for university. When pressed, Aidan says his only dream is to help Aleisha and Leilah.
That night, as she closes up the deserted library, Aleisha feels gripped by a sense of the gloom and mystery of du Maurier’s novel. It gives her the creeps: “Aleisha had no idea what it was like to be haunted by a dead woman or to live in a mansion, but the way Manderley was described, the atmosphere, sharp, heavy, and suffocating, she got that” (119).
Part 3, Interlude Summary: “The Reading List: Izzy”
Izzy is forever busy. As she hurries about the shops of Wembley, she always takes time to pick up discarded lists she finds, like other people’s to-do lists or shopping lists. She keeps something of a collection, imagining the people’s lives and putting stories to the lists. One day, she finds a list of books, unsigned. She is impressed by the gentle curve of the handwriting. That night, she takes out her mother’s copy of Rebecca, which she has not opened in years. She settles down to reread it.
Part 3, Chapter 12 Summary: “Mukesh”
It is the morning of the temple’s charity walk. Mukesh is nervous about being part of it, but he goes. He meets the widow Nilakshi, one of his wife’s best friends. The two chat nervously. Even two years after Naina’s death, Mukesh is not sure what his relationship with Nilakshi is, or should be. The two start the walk together, but Mukesh begins to feel lightheaded, overcome by all the automobile fumes from the nearby roadway. At the end of the charity walk, Nilakshi walks Mukesh home just to make sure he is OK. Mukesh settles down for a nap, and when he awakens, he takes up Rebecca, certain the book will offer him a sweet escape. “[H]is imagination heightened by the story” (136), he feels Naina is in the room with him.
Parts 2-3 Analysis
Reading connects people—that is the primary message conveyed by the novel. This is clearly illustrated in the interlude about Izzy, who collects other people’s discarded lists and lives vicariously through them. Though most of these lists are not like Naina’s—rather, they are shopping lists, schedules, and other everyday things—Izzy still uses them to craft stories and forge invisible connections with those around her. Naina’s list, specifically the inclusion of Rebecca, triggers for Izzy memories of her father and how much he treasured the family’s expensive edition of the book, which had been the favorite of Izzy’s deceased mother. The memory, in turn, encourages Izzy to retrieve that book and to feel the magic in just holding it: “She remembered when her father had given her the book, she knew she was old enough and trusted enough to read it” (123). Rebecca makes Izzy feel like her parents are right there with her; the same occurs for Mukesh in Chapter 12. The serendipitous nature of Izzy’s epiphany and the parallel between her and Mukesh create the novel’s sense of The Transformative Impact of Stories.
Aleisha, in finishing To Kill a Mockingbird, experiences a similar moment of expansive energy. The story impacts her; in particular, the towering presence of the good and wise father Atticus Finch makes her own father seem small and selfish. Their conversation, awkward and emotionally stilted, reveals the depth of trauma Aleisha’s father carelessly inflicted on his family in abandoning them for his new lover. But that emotional response to the novel is not enough. Without understanding exactly why, Aleisha wants to share the experience of the story, share her own reactions and, in turn, test them against what others see in the story. She does so with Mukesh, and their conversation serves as Aleisha’s first foray into connecting with fellow readers. This sense of community will grow the more Aleisha transforms into a reader.
Aleisha’s conversation with Mukesh brings them both closer to understanding The Reward of Intergenerational Friendship. This theme also emerges with Mukesh’s interactions with Priya, his lonely, bookish granddaughter. Mukesh believes the reading list is key to getting to know Priya, who, he feels, needs the connection just as much as he does. He hopes that going to the library, securing her a copy of this amazing novel “[can] be a start, to show her that he [is] trying to understand” (78). This begins the quiet evolution of their friendship and broadens the web of connection that began with Naina’s list.
Mukesh is shocked to discover that such connections can emerge from fiction. He was a career ticket agent for the British intercontinental railway, which means he worked within an immense, interconnected network. He could literally see those connections in the maps all about the station. That a book, that a library, that a bookshop might achieve a similar network, on a scale that would reduce any national rail service to an insignificant irony, rocks Mukesh’s worldview as he prepares to check out the copy of To Kill a Mockingbird for his granddaughter. Yes, he feels close to Naina, Priya, and even Aleisha, but it is all the past library patrons, all the other readers of To Kill a Mockingbird that drive home the extent of connection a single book can achieve: “It was for everyone. They might have read it on a beach, on the train, on the bus, in the park, in their living rooms. On the toilet” (95). This moment becomes the first expression of the magic that novels can offer to counteract existential loneliness, and it speaks to The Importance of Libraries and Bookshops.
In addition to arguing the power of novels to defy loneliness, these chapters build the case for stories as a way of navigating The Difficult Process of Handling Grief. In paralleling the emotional lives of Aleisha and Mukesh, the novel suggests that more unites these apparently disparate individuals than divides them. Mukesh is working through the most typical definition of grief: His beloved wife has died, and he misses her dearly. However, Aleisha also struggles to handle the loss of her family: The shattered psyche of her mother, the lost dreams of her brother, and the heartless departure of her father. Aleisha feels alone, adrift in circumstances she cannot fix. For both Mukesh and Aleisha, novels work twofold in helping them handle their grief. The novels repeatedly remind Mukesh of Naina, and he often feels her presence when he reads them. Simultaneously, his journey with novels coincides with his forward progress, as he begins to reach out and deviate from his lonely routine. His connection with Nilakshi is brief, here, but it will grow along with Mukesh.
The novels have a similar effect on Aleisha. They serve as a way to bridge the gap between her and her mother, which Aleisha otherwise struggles to accomplish. They also coax Aleisha out of her shell and help her connect with the greater world; not just with Mukesh, but also with the boy in the beanie, and even with her environment, such as the eerie gloom of the library that emerges with Rebecca. The next chapters further explore these major themes of connection and storytelling as Aleisha and Mukesh make their way down Naina’s list.
