The Reading List, by Sara Nisha Adams

I’m always a sucker for fiction about books. Often such bookstores are set in and around bookstores — there’s a whole trend of that lately — but The Reading List instead is set against the backdrop of a small neighbourhood library in London, a little-used branch that’s threatened with closure.

Through the medium of a mysterious book list that keeps showing up on random slips of paper around the community, this book brings together two unlikely friends — Mukesh, and elderly widower whose late wife was a great reader but who’s never gotten into books himself, and Aleisha, a teenage girl reluctantly working part-time at the library her older brother loves but she’s indifferent to. Around these two, and their shared reading list, circles a constellation of other characters — Mukesh’s and Aleisha’s families, each with their own challenges, and the other library patrons, including several who encounter the same booklist and begin their own reading journeys.

This was a lovely little book with a touching exploration of how books can help, hurt, and heal. The very important subplot about Aleisha’s family felt a little underdeveloped to me … or perhaps developed in an unsatisfying way? Or maybe I just didn’t like what happened in that storyline. But overall I really enjoyed reading this book.