I was that annoying student in secondary school who read all the literature books on the booklist during the August holidays. I still re-read some of my favourite school literature books to this day. Most readers are kindle snobs and prefer “to feel the book in their hands” but I love my kindle. My dad gifted me my first kindle in Form 6, so I carry 18 years of reading with me wherever I go. Whenever I feel sad, stressed, or just need a pick me upper, I have my go-to novels a click away.
When my brother Brett died four years ago, it happened two weeks before my final exams for my Masters in London. I flew home for the funeral then back up to London and straight from the airport to the university to take my medical translation exam. The weeks that followed were a blur of thesis writing, studying for exams, commuting from Cambridge, where we were living, to London to sit the exams, and crying. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t concentrate, and could only do 25 mins of work at a time and that would leave me exhausted. I would force myself get at least 4 slots of 25mins work a day and 1 slot of 25 mins workout in the morning, I didn’t always succeed but it was my daily goal. At nights I used to lay awake and wonder about death and where Brett was, and what he was doing, and panic that I was going to fail everything, and that the huge expense would have been a waste of time and effort.
One sleepless night I picked up my kindle and started browsing through my library. I saw Anne of Green Gables and clicked it open and read till the sun started coming up. I studied Anne of Green Gables in school and always loved it, so it was comforting to get lost in that world again. Some of my favourite lines took on new meanings “I’m in the depths of despair”, and “my life is the perfect graveyard of buried hopes.” I went on to read out the entire series of the Anne books and was surprised by how much death features as a theme. My teenage self never realised that and was obviously more taken with the romance between Gilbert and Anne. Those books kept me company at nights while the rest of the world slept, and on the trains when tears burned my eyes.
For homesickness, I always turn to VS Naipaul. I have a House for Mr Biswas, Miguel Street and Mystic Masseur on my audibles account and my favourite passages that always bring a smile to my face bookmarked. “It not dirty, it just looking so.” And “Married man! Married man!” I have been trying to read more Trinidadian writers during the pandemic, but no one captures the Trini like Naipaul does and I find myself going back to him time and time again. This year I’ve read four Naipaul books and two on him. It’s easy to get lost in an author when the next book is suggested and just a click away. Even his novels that aren’t based in Trinidad, seep of Trinidadianess. He’s a contentious character with a lot of traits to get you vex, but can’t you say the same about Trinidad?
For a pick me upper, there’s my Sophie Kinsella stash, particularly her pre-shopaholics books. For light laughs there’s PG. Wodehouse, for stomach hurting laughs, Mortimer’s Rumpole books. My feel-good books are all childhood classics, Wind in the Willows, Alice in Wonderland, Charlotte’s Web and the Narnia collection. When I miss my languages, I love Relato de un Náufrago and Noticia de un Secuestro, both by Marquez. However, somehow reading French has never brought me any comfort, so I’m still on the search for an author to capture me and open to suggestions. I re-read Amour, Colère, et Folie this year and enjoyed it well enough but I wouldn’t exactly say it gave me frissons of delight.
One day Hasani and I will set our suitcases down for good and I will have a huge bookshelf with all my favourites. But for now, it’s nice to have my kindle to go along life’s journey with me.
