Books for the Soul

My Favorite Books

1. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

2. Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro

3. Dark Matter - Blake Crouch

4. The Sun Does Shine - Anthony Ray Hinton

5. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

In my opinion, a great book makes you think.

All of the books I mentioned make you think in different ways, free from judgement, giving you space to take in the rich story and bend your mind to imagine the elements from just words on a page. 

Klara and the Sun, in particular, has always stuck with me. While a lot of these books talk about humanity and the soul, in Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro writes from the perspective of an artificially intelligent robotic “friend,” whose purpose is to care for and keep company with a young, somewhat isolated girl in a dystopian future. 

Much like humans, Klara never asked to be given a consciousness, to wander the world in search of meaning. In the novel, the sun becomes a symbol of something spiritual, like a God to Klara. While reading it, something about relating to a robot feels strange, but there is a comfort in knowing that even a machine, when given the same access to life as we have, will constantly search for something they cannot name or even know exists.

Reading will always be important to me. I find it to be the most accessible way to know more about people and our thoughts, not only from the writers, but from discussing the books with others. Knowing more about others makes us all more empathetic, and I think we all need a little more of that in today's world.