Other than my 2.5 regular readers (yes, the decimal point is in the right place! The .5 is there to cater for absence due to the vicissitudes of life), no one would know I typically don’t write the same content for my Monday poems and my Saturday essays (if they even know I write them!).
This week, I’m making an exception.
On Monday, I wrote a poem that was all about how I’ve decided to just read books that move me. Not those society says moves them. Or because they were critically acclaimed books that won numerous accolades and awards (I mean no disrespect, but sorry Hemingway, Lewis, Tolkein, Tolstoy, Fitzgerald, Le Carre, Morrison, Didion, Szalay….you get the picture).
How did I come by this latest revelation?
Let me tell you.
Remarkably Bright Creatures – Where Art Meets Life
It began with a recent movie I watched.
Remarkably Brilliant Story
The movie was Remarkably Bright Creatures (2026), starring the veteran Oscar-winning actress Sally Field, opposite up-and-coming actor Lewis Pullman (son of another veteran silver screen star Bill Pullman). Without giving the plot away, let’s just say this touching movie aroused my curiosity to find out more behind the scenes.
In one of the numerous media interviews they fielded (no pun intended), I recalled something Lewis Pullman shared with Sally Field that hit me like a ton of bricks. That revelation made me feel like a fool for not coming to the same conclusion before!
In that clip, Pullman talked about a time he worked at a bookstore and the owner told him this:
There are way too many books in the world, you’ll never be able to read them all…If it’s not hooking you, then it’s for somebody else…drop it so that you have more time to find the one that’s gonna change your life.
Remarkably Bad Decisions
As simple and obvious as that sounds, I look back and realise that so much of my past decisions on what to read was driven more by the very opposite motivation — I picked books others recommended. For instance, every year I would wait for the Booker Prize folks to announce the long and short-listed finalists for their annual 10,000 pounds top prize just so I know what to read.
And please don’t even get me started on my numerous attempts in as many decades to read the classics and epics. While I’ve had some success finishing a few novels — with greats like George Elliot, William Shakespeare, Kazuo Ishuguro, Margaret Atwood, Yann Martel, and Khaled Hosseini — not everyone of their works has moved me.
Yet I thought that anyone who wishes to be acknowledged as a prolific fiction reader (yes, I admit I do still wish to be seen as one), had to read these famous authors and their books. Right?
Well, thanks to Pullman and that bookstore owner, I am going to stop all these fruitless attempts right now! Instead, I am going to restart my reading journey afresh.
What better way than to begin with the creator of the story behind Remarkably Bright Creatures, a movie that moved me so deeply when I watched it last week?
And from there, another film.
And the book it was adapted from.
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
In researching for the first read of my new book reading journey, I came across this website called Literature Map. With it, you can key in the name of an author, eg Shelby Van Pelt (who wrote Remarkably Bright Creatures), and the website will produce what looks like a mental map of other authors whose works have a similar vibe as Van Pelt’s.
The closer on the map the name appears to Van Pelt’s, the more similar would be the vein and feel of the writing.
Which was how I found the author Gabrielle Zevin, and her 2014 novel The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry and the film adaptation of the same book in 2022.
Upon seeing the book cover of its more recent editions (it was used as the film’s promo poster), I knew it was a match made in heaven for me.
Because much of the novel was set in (arguably) my favourite place in the whole world.
A bookstore.
Synopsis
The novel introduces a grumpy widower cum bookstore owner A.J. Fikry who lives and works in the same shophouse located on a tiny little Massachusetts island called Alice. His miserable existence receives two much-needed jolts when first someone abandons a 25-month old toddler in his bookstore, and later he falls for a sales agent with a book distribution company.
There were a few other plot twists in this story which I won’t give away here. Rather, I wanted to draw from the story some important universal truths that really spoke to me.
I’m Bringing Life Back Into My Reading!
First, that if we are offered a way to distract ourselves out of our own personal tragedies, we should at least give it a try. During a visit to the local doctor, Fikry was advised to resume his love of running (which he stopped after his wife’s tragic demise). Reluctantly, he did. Which was when his health and demeanour improved, and good stuff began happening to him. All because he put his running gears back on.
Second, if life delivers you an unexpected package, in this case a toddler, it happens for a reason. Roll with it til something magical and beautiful happens. Fikry did. He adopted and raised the child who grew up to become an accomplished writer.
Finally, there was a line in the book/movie that instantly brought tears to my eyes when I came across it. Because, unbeknownst to me, it’s been carved into my very soul since I was old enough to read a book:
A place is not a place without a bookstore.
Despite the tussle that still happens now between brick-and-mortar bookstores and the likes of online options like Amazon Books, I still cling fast to the prayer that physical books, and by extension physical bookstores, will never disappear from our landscape.
For as Pullman shared in the same interview, the slogan above the bookstore entrance he worked in captured the eternal truth many of us ought to know (or perhaps once knew when we were kids):
A book can change your life!
From now on, I’m looking for those books!
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