My life in books NIKESH SHUKLA
This month, The Good Immigrant author Nikesh Shukla publishes Brown Baby, a memoir written for his daughters. Here, he shares the reads that have shaped him
MY FAVOURITE BOOK AS A CHILD WAS…
Any Spider-man comic.
I found a kinship with Peter Parker, the teenager wracked with guilt and shame, desperate to make the world a better place and putting on a mask in order to do so.
THE ONE BOOK I THINK EVERYONE SHOULD READ IS…
Good Talk by Mira Jacob is a gorgeous graphic memoir about difficult conversations on family, grief, race and everything in between. This is a wonderfully human book about how to talk to the ones you love about the most brittle of things.
MY FAVOURITE LINE FROM A BOOK IS…
From Zadie Smith’s
The Embassy Of
Cambodia: ‘Surely there is something to be said for drawing a circle around our attention and remaining within that circle. But how large should this circle be?’ If ever there was a line that described the interior of a writer, it’s this.
THE CHARACTER FROM A BOOK I RELATE TO MOST IS…
Definitely Karim Amir, the ‘Englishman born and bred, almost’ from Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha Of Suburbia, who is a wonderfully complex and confused young brown boy from the suburbs trying to make his way.
THE LAST BOOK THAT MADE ME CRY WAS…
Caleb Femi’s Poor, a book of poetry about growing up in South London, mourning friends, being collateral damage in moments of violence and finding community in music and people. I wept at the final, hopeful lines of the last poem.
THE LAST BOOK THAT MADE ME LAUGH WAS…
Naoise Dolan’s Exciting Times. The narrator, Ava, has some brilliantly skewering lines about Britishness and about men and class that had me chuckling and howling on every page.
THE BOOK THAT GOT ME THROUGH A DIFFICULT TIME WAS…
The Fire Next Time by
James Baldwin, which contains two letters to loved ones that manage to instil hope and strength in the darkest of times. I turn to Baldwin whenever times are tough. He always knows the right things to say.
MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER FROM A BOOK IS…
Can I say Spider-man and Peter Parker again? No? Okay, Miles Morales’s Spider-man? No? Okay! Okay! I adore Ms Marvel, too. I love comics, what can I say?
MY ALL-TIME FAVOURITE BOOK IS…
I can’t answer this.
All I can say is Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Zadie Smith’s NW and Fatimah Asghar’s If They Come For Us, are all books I still think about on a weekly basis, without fail.