In A History of Reading Alberto Manguel wrote: “We are what we read.” Manguel believed that we interiorize books and absorb them like food. Books then nourish us with arguments and provide us with intellectual energy and background.
Lofty, right?
That may be what happens to a select group of readers, but not to me. In my day-to-day, reading competes with bingeable TV series, movies, and podcasts. And most of the titles I consume fade in a couple of months. Sometimes, I pick up a novel from my shelves, start reading, and realize as I turn a page that there are underlined passages or comments on the margins, comments I have made. I am the human version of Dory, Nemo’s memory-challenged friend — hopelessly forgetful.
There are exceptions: books that don’t dim or go away but stay with me and grow roots, books that have changed my world — my mind benders.
I remember the afternoon I began reading The Hour of the Star, and fell in love with the prose of the great Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector. And then there is Thais, an out-of-fashion novel by Anatole France, the story of a hermit monk and a beautiful courtesan. I bought the slim 1931 edition in a second-hand bookstore. I’ve read better novels but none that taught me structure in a clearer way. Not only do I remember Thais’ plot and switching POV but the beautiful illustrations by Raphael Frieda, one of the reasons I bought it.
Every title in the following infographic changed something in my mind. Altogether, they are my foundation; they are me. But don’t take them as unchanging or exclusive. Although they have pride of place, there are others in those niches. For example, among my childhood faves, are comics, all kinds of comics, historical, fantasy, and mythological series that I once devoured and remember fondly.
Mind Benders isn’t carved in stone. As I read, I add to it. Here are four examples from my most recent reading past:
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. For the incredible language and setting.
The Man Who Loved Dogs by Leonardo Padura, a masterpiece of structure and pace. I read the first two pages and ordered three other Padura books. After devouring them, I set aside my TBR list and jumped into a year-long reading digression. From the Padura books I went to Lincoln In the Bardo by George Saunders and from Saunders to Chekhov, Gogol, and Babel. Books are linked; one leads to another.
Following a LitHub selection of the most important books of the last twenty years, I came across The Known World by Edward P. Jones, the 2004 Pulitzer price for Fiction, a novel on slavery in Virginia. I fell in love with its universal characters and Jones’ dazzling prose. From E. P. Jones I navigated backwards in time and read Zora Neale Hurston and Their Eyes Were Watching God and couldn’t get enough of the folklore and her lyrical prose.∼