on the shelf, episode four
postcard 14: niña (readsbynins)'s favorite books
“You’ve punctured my solitude…but the time for puncturing had come.”
prelude
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your placein the family of things—Wild Geese, Mary Oliver
Every month, I’ll be featuring someone’s favorite books so you get to hear from someone who isn’t me. For May, I asked Nins, who is one of my closest friends and also one of the best writers I know. She is always so thoughtful about the literature that she reads, which inspires me to be the same. Her reviews are literal masterpieces, which is why I was so excited (and honored) to ask her to write about her top 10 books!
(Here is her Instagram for you to check out).
1. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
Albeit a children’s book, The Velveteen Rabbit came into my life when I was already in high school. I was thirteen years old, felt like I was competing in a never-ending race with my peers, and desperately trying to find my place. It was sucky. Really, really sucky. I had thought that growing up meant shedding old skins, but at that point it felt like I kept trying on new ones even though they didn’t fit, all in some frenzied attempt to mold myself into someone that could be loved by others.
And then in the middle of a lecture one fateful morning, my seventh grade English teacher mentioned this beautiful quote from The Velveteen Rabbit that left me breathless:
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
This story is heartfelt, endearing, and one that will leave you in tears. As a children’s book, it boasts all of the quiet innocence that children encapsulate, and it leaves you clinging to the bits of magic that floated through the pages and carry them with you to adulthood. This book is so special to me that it’s probably the first one I’ll ever read to my future babies when I have them. :)
2. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
In my senior year of high school, I was drunk on love and life and lasts and didn’t think there could be anything else I’d need to add color to my world. I had loved reading when I was much younger, but at that point I hadn’t touched a single book in years.
But in my English class, which, for my final semester, lent extra focus on 21st century literature, we were required to read a few chapters of All the Light We Cannot See. Being a mammoth of a book, it naturally immediately put me off and I vowed to my friends that I’d just stick with the Sparknotes version of it. But after reading only a few pages out of pure curiosity, something in me just clicked.
It was both a gut punch and butterflies in my stomach, that incomparable feeling of revisiting a past love and relearning an old hobby I thought I’d grown out of. Within a few days, I devoured the book and that was it. I was a goner.
My heart, which I thought was already near bursting, somehow managed to expand even further, drawing me into worlds that only reading could bring me. All the Light We Cannot See served as my reminder of why reading is the most exhilarating experience and an exercise in empathy above all.
From then on, books became my constant companion, and all the light I thought I couldn’t see became clear as day. That’s what reading does, it illuminates.
3. Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
If there is one book that irrevocably altered my worldview and quite literally changed my life, it would be Beautiful World, Where Are You. Since reading this book and then rereading it every December with my best friends (hi elle!), I have written letters via email to my loved ones across the globe, felt more intentional with the love I give, and been more cognizant about just how lucky I am to be living in the same lifetime as every person I hold close to my heart.
On love and just how stupidly human it is – Beautiful World, Where Are You’s protagonist Eileen, who is the embodiment of the unshakeable willpower to hold back, also demonstrated the depth of faith and love one could have in another that their very being is intricately connected with all things beautiful in the world. That this is the kind of love that can persist solely on their existence, being tied to them in some way, in whatever capacity they’ll allow you, and that this can already be enough for a lifetime.
I pick up something new from Beautiful World, Where Are You every time I reread it, which shows to me again that reading really does illuminate.
4. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Written almost a century ago, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was birthed in quiet stillness right before the tide shifted – before war and machines and the modern age. And yet the heart of this book beats until today, because although the world has moved on in leaps and bounds, the human spirit remains the same.
Describing the resilience of women across generations, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’s message is clear – the strength that is both innate and fostered in womanhood is universal. From mothers who fight to the death for their families to young girls who are dreamers but are also relentlessly hard workers, women who are unfailingly optimistic but who also have ironclad wills.
This is the perfect coming-of-age story as it gave me the opportunity to march through life through the lens of a girl growing up – from her young, innocent eyes to a weary but still loving, still hopeful outlook on all that lies ahead. There are books that you love, and there are books that you hold tight in your hands and in your heart for years to come. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was the latter for me.
5. Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
Conversations with Friends is my mirror, my shadow, the pieces of myself I had always known were there but had always been afraid to bring to light.
The beauty of Sally Rooney’s writing has always been its brutal honesty. That human beings could have such selfish thoughts and act in such childish ways sometimes seems like overkill, but when we’re wronged, or we’re exhausted, or we’re having a bad day and questioning the meaning of it all, the bad sometimes outweighs the good and the acting like Sally Rooney characters becomes second nature rather than an exaggeration of the human condition.
In Conversations with Friends, there is so much about the protagonist Frances that resonates deeply with the reader – her guilt over not being a more ‘involved’ daughter, her insecurities about her affair with Nick that she hides with a detached exterior, her stark loneliness made even more distinct by her innate ability to feel everything in full volume. Frances’ downward spiral was a product of her crumbling relationships, which is very telling about the trajectory of our own lives and how it is influenced by every relationship we’ve ever nurtured and broken off and ruined and held tight in our hands.
6. Writers & Lovers by Lily King
I first read Writers & Lovers after a long, long slump. I had COVID at the time so I was stuck in my room and there was nothing else for me to do but read. I picked up this book from my shelf with little to no expectations other than to try to get back into reading, but it struck a very personal chord with me and reminded me of exactly why I have always loved to read.
Writers & Lovers evokes the same feeling that the poem Wild Geese by Mary Oliver does – a loosening in your chest, an exhale, glimpses of light after a dark day. Just like Casey, the protagonist, many of us are not just stuck in a rut but are actively trying to claw our way out of darkness. It is a very lonely thing to be lost and stagnant as you traverse your way through adulthood, overwhelmed with the blows life keeps giving you. Like the grief that comes with losing not just a parent but a best friend, too.The anxiety of wondering whether this watered down version of yourself is all you’ll ever amount to. And as these blows build up, so does the fear that you are regressing rather than progressing, that you are weak for letting ordinary things derail you and hold you back. But as Writers & Lovers reminded me so eloquently, this is not nothing. This is not too little, this is not too much. This is not nothing, the drifting and the grief and the war inside.
7. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
The Secret History is the book that made me want to start writing about how much I love books. I had long kept my love of reading a private love, but reading this book was such an intense experience that I felt overwhelmed to the point that words were bursting out of me and I just wanted to talk about it. I had never seen reading as something to share, but The Secret History is a book that demands to be discussed.
Although often classified under ‘dark academia’, The Secret History boasts so much more – hedonism, debilitating moral dilemmas, crumbling relationships, and an irreversible descent into madness. I had never read anything like it before. There are times when you immerse yourself into books, but The Secret History hooks you in and immerses you all on its own.
8. Bluets by Maggie Nelson
Bluets, my most recent addition to this list, is a book that I read in between long slumps. It’s a very different experience to be reading during this time in my life (I’m a first year medical student), because reading feels more intentional. To dedicate my time to it means I actively rather than passively pore through the pages, and I make more of an effort to immerse myself into the words of the author, so much so that they cling to me like a second skin.
The experience of reading Bluets felt like a silent killer, cracking me open in a way I never expected it to. Like the title suggests, this book is a celebration of the color blue. But it is also an exploration of the feeling blue, that muted melancholy accompanying the lonely even on ordinary, run-of-the-mill days. Bluets is blue as in cyanosis blue, a malformation of the heart blue, a heartbroken to the point of devastation blue.
What I’ve recently discovered is how much I enjoy books that read like poetry. It’s an incomparable feeling to stand in the world of a story and just bask in the sheer intelligence of good writing. That’s how it felt reading Bluets, in all its intensity, eloquence, and devastating prose.
9. Beartown
Beartown is one of the most devastating books I’ve ever read. Backman writes with such intent and meticulous care that will leave you at the edge of your seat, rooting for and despising and cursing and praying for every single character in this hockey town. Books that pore over every minor detail and describe with such precision sometimes tend to be tedious to read, but Backman keeps you invested in the story until the very end.
While Beartown expertly tackles so much in just a few hundred pages, from sports culture to blind loyalty, my favorite relationship to read about was that of Maya and her parents. As I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that I love to read about how the relationship between parents and their children change throughout time, how they can disagree or become more understanding of each other, how the love gets tested and changes shape and grows wings. In the case of Beartown, it felt like a privilege to read about the depths of love Peter and Kira have for their daughter, and how they would do just about anything, risk it all to protect her and feel the ground crumbling should they fail.
10. Beach Read
“Why do you think, January?”
I love romance, and I love to read romance. I always struggled to find the perfect romance book that didn’t feel cheap or commodified or just insta-love. But Beach Read, which I have probably read a minimum of five times, was meaningful without being overdone, lovely without being cheesy. It felt real, which is what a good romance should feel like, too.
Although romance was the overarching theme of Beach Read, the relationships outside of the romance never felt like just accessories. I loved reading about January’s introspective thoughts and her complicated relationship with her parents, and how these became a facet for how she navigated her relationship with Gus. Beach Read made me swoon and it made me ache and it made me reevaluate my own relationships. How we sometimes traverse through life with rose-tinted glasses until darkness arrives and then suddenly everything is gray. How we carry on with life anyway because regardless, we remain loved wholly and imperfectly and unconditionally and this love is enough to pull us through.
interlude i: what i read this week
Okay I have yet!!! to update my Goodreads and I will do it next week. I’ve started feeling out of it when I read lately (as in I read but I don’t feel like I’m truly reading). I began to feel worried that I’ve lost the joy I get from reading, so I have made it a little summer challenge to reread all my old favorites to rediscover what I love about it. I am currently reading Beartown and will be reading the next two books after that. And then I plan on making my way down this list.
Also, here is my guide on finding articles and what newsletters to subscribe to (along with my favorite articles)!
interlude ii: what i watched this week
Like everyone, I was glued to the screen for four hours last Thursday, watching the newest season of Bridgerton. While I still don’t really get why a meager 8 episodes need to be split into two parts, it was much better than I expected it to be. Neither Colin nor Penelope are my favorite characters and I wasn’t really interested in their story, but Bridgerton is always so good.
Movies: I watched Tigertail, which was a slow, moving tale (my favorite kind of movies). I felt like it was a bit too cognizant of its own “depth”, and it sometimes took the focus out for me. I also watched Belfast, which I didn’t really love. It felt too…Oscar bait-y? And I tend to stay away from movies that feel like that. And in desperate need of a good rom-com during a dreary week, I rewatched 27 Dresses.
I want to make my way down my Letterboxd watchlist this month!
Here are some video essays I watched this week: this video about Apollo and Daphne, this long video about Linguistics presented in an iceberg fashion, this video on house flipping and home renovating, and this deep dive into the 2010s unfounded, bizarre hate train for Anne Hathaway.
postlude
beautiful to read and the book reccos are on point <3
BLUETS. it keeps finding me. as it sits on my kitchen counter now, recently signed by Maggie. and inspired my own memoir in verse five years ago. beautiful review!