Great time to let your nostalgia run wild
Britt Mann suggests that, these holidays, you should reread the books that have shaped you. And yes, that even includes Harry Potter.
Among other interests listed in my Tinder bio: ‘‘Books, but don’t ask for recommendations.’’ I’m reluctant to offer them because, despite my role commissioning book reviews for Stuff’s weekend publications, it’s rare that I read anything of-themoment, and I’m embarrassed to admit this. I’ll get to them eventually, but in the meantime, I often reread favourites. They feel safer somehow: I’m acutely conscious of the impact books can have on my life. My opinions, even world view, have been drastically altered by them. So, by returning to familiar territory, any cataclysmic effect has already taken place, and, rather than grappling with an existential crisis, I’m left with the sheer enjoyment of the unfolding narrative and the appreciation of how words have been combined to reveal it.
This summer, my suggestion is to reread those books that have shaped you. Mine are the books that I find myself, time and again, asking friends whether they’ve read them and, if not, insisting that they must. Not least because reading them might offer insight into parts of me I can’t otherwise explain.
Americanah (2013) by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie Americanah was the first book to show me how fiction could impart knowledge of person and place in a way non-fiction never could. As a result, fiction no longer feels like a soft option.
Adichie has gone on to become a literary and feminist icon: her TED talk ‘‘We Should All Be Feminists’’ was sampled by Beyonce on her 2013 single Flawless, and the author continues to make invaluable contributions to the intersectional feminist conversation, though she’d rather we just stick with the F-word on its own.
Americanah details protagonist Ifemelu’s experience emigrating from Nigeria to the United States, highlighting, among other insights, how the experience of being black differs on either continent. This, for me, was the most profound takeaway – the thing I couldn’t have learnt in a history text. I have since gone on to read Adichie’s other novels, all of which I would recommend, which also offer fascinating insights into Nigerian culture in general and the country’s experience of civil conflict and post-colonialism in particular.
All The Light We Cannot See (2014) by Anthony Doerr
I was turned on to this book by way of Kindle’s ‘‘Recommended For You’’ function. I’m not sure why it popped up there, given my complex about how unliterary I am, but I’m glad it did (and felt awfully smug when it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the year after publication). Usually, the thought of historical fiction – particularly that set during one of the World Wars – leaves me cold. At the time, the plot of ATLWCS reminded me quite forcefully of Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, also set in WWII, also detailing an out-of-place girl’s beautifully unorthodox relationship with a father figure, and her friendship with a cute wee German boy.
But it was the first book I enjoyed primarily for character development and symphonic use of the English language, rather than plot. Raised on fast-paced thrillers (my mother would go to book launches to get authors like James Patterson and Tess Gerritsen to sign copies of their latest whodunnits for me before I’d even started high-school), my latent appreciation of literary form over function was a welcome discovery.
Bridget Jones’s Diary books 1, 2 and 3 (1996, 1999, 2013) by Helen Fielding
Bridget Jones’s Diary is my mostread book. My copy of the first instalment in the trilogy is falling apart to such a degree I daren’t relocate it from my parents’ garage. The second book (The Edge of Reason) was, unusually, even better than the first.
I first read BJD when I was much too young. Plenty of references were lost on me, and probably much of the humour. I continued to revisit it, though, because the protagonist’s chronic self-doubt resonated with me from tweenhood until now. In my late teens, I encouraged my male best friend to read it. He said it explained a lot about me. In my early 20s, my flatmate and I used to read passages aloud to one another in bed. The novels – such a genius satirical commentary on the experience of modern womanhood that it took me a decade to realise that was what it actually was – remain a cornerstone of mine and the flatmate’s relationship to this day. Bridget taught me to transform tragedy into anecdote, a coping mechanism I routinely employ: whenever misfortune or humiliation befalls me I know in my heart that one day, it’ll at least make for a good story.
How To Be A Woman (2011) by Caitlin Moran
British columnist Caitlin Moran introduced a whole generation of young women to feminism by packaging its concepts in a relatable, palatable way. Suddenly, feminism made sense, and it was for everyone. Far from being something to be ashamed to admit, it became a no-brainer.
‘‘Put your hand in your pants,’’ Moran instructs in HTBAW.
‘‘Do you have a vagina? Do you want to be in charge of it? If you said ‘yes’ to both, then congratulations! You’re a feminist.’’
The book was not a paragon. I reread it a few months ago (obviously) and found I disagreed with, for example, the bit where Moran reckons it’s fine for women to slag each other off. But the book was face-achingly funny, gross, articulate, and employed metaphors so elaborate as to be feats of linguistic gymnasticism. It was, for me, the perfect gateway to other feminist literature.
The Harry Potter series, books 1-7 (1997-2007) by JK Rowling
Fantasy is not generally my jam – plot holes do me in. In fairness, I’ve probably never given it much of a chance. The all-consuming world of Harry Potter ruined all else for me.
Even now, more than a decade after I first read Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, when I see a weirdly dressed person on the street, I’ll think to myself: ‘‘Wizard.’’ The books were credited with getting bookphobes excited about reading, and, indeed, my own older brother got stuck into them in his 20s, having never read a book that wasn’t assigned by a teacher. I reread books four, six and seven every summer holidays during university. My parents bought me a brand new box set with ‘‘adult covers’’ for my 20th birthday; the originals had disintegrated.
Whether someone has read the books or not has been almost a dealbreaker in budding friendships. Now, I know it’s better not to ask. My flatmates in Wellington, mercifully, were as keen on the boy wizard as I was.
When I scored a job in Christchurch, they threw a Harry Potter-themed party to send me off. We scattered star-shaped confetti across the flat’s two storeys. Four years and three cities later, I still occasionally find a star in my clothes.