Growing up in Shanghai, China, my bookshelf options were not necessarily the most diverse or international. They often consisted of translated fairytales, heavy Chinese classics, or occasional graphic novels or comics like Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Dog Man. Hence, I was never a big reader since youth—I often indulged myself with movies instead. I found most books too pedantic and too sophisticated to read. So, for a long time I didn’t love books that much, and my bookshelf was oftentimes covered in substandard blindbox dolls or yearbooks.
A big turning point in my life when it came to books was when my dad came back from a work trip in Australia. I remembered him carrying two gigantic suitcases almost twice my height and rolling them in front of me. Inside were oceans of books—from classics to children’s books, from novels to poetry. To this day, I still want to thank my dad for his efforts that led me to become a literary arts lover—because the change from a life without to a life with a diverse range of books is tremendous. I came to love the process of exploration, in which I learn the heart of another author through excavating their world creations and character sensitivities. I especially adored the aspect of excessive thinking, where a character vomits their brains out and I get to trace my finger across the convex folds until I could almost call it mine.
A lot of books have been important to me in my lifetime, both for my writing career and personal growth. The fourth grade me has written endless reimaginings of the Harry Potter series and poems have thrived on my reincarnation in Jane Eyre’s body. But my favorite books would have to be those by Amy Tan.
Diaspora and heritage is not an uncommon theme in literature. Fifth grade summer, I was handed The Joy Luck Club, a book named after a Mahjong parlor that did not make much rhythmic sense until translated to its original counterpart—喜福会; “喜”, whose meaning stretched beyond joy and “福”, whose interpretations stretched beyond luck. And yet here I was—criss-crossed and reading the Mahjong tiles clatter, bone on bone, as four women shuffle latent histories between eight palms, grasping luck that nearly slipped through the cracks. Upon my first read I was shocked by a few things: one, that words can sound as intimate as sweet-sour meat loafs served between the voices of mothers whispering across a dinner table, brimming with an accent I had always heard but never before seen in ink; two, that daughters could wade through language like a river with two shores, caught between the currents of Mandarin’s lyricism and English’s sharp edges; three, that a character in an English book could be named in Chinese, pinyin above alphabet. After this book, I read more of Amy Tan, ranging from The Kitchen’s Godwife to The Moon Lady.
Maybe enough of her books, but you probably can kind of tell that they’re impactful. Beyond Amy Tan, I also read a lot of historical fiction, my favourites being the classic All the Light We Cannot See, The Nightingale, The Marriage Portrait, Pachinko and many, many more.
As I began to write poetry, I’ve also been interested in poetry-prose or prose-poetry, or basically just anything that wavers in the lines of obscurity and clear plot progressions. I still love On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, as popular as it may already be.
Now with a relatively packed day to day schedule, finding the time to read immersively is hard, and oftentimes I would resort to reading online lit mags or e-books instead of physical copies (something I feel guilty about since I love the smell of fresh ink). But I do try. Another interesting fact about me is that I love aesthetic covers and pretty titles, and often tend to buy books just for the sake of their beauty. So yes, I do judge a book by its cover. I am currently not in Shanghai so I don’t have pictures of my big, old bookshelf, but I can promise you that it is packed and very, very aesthetic.
Penny Wei is from Shanghai and Massachusetts. She has been recognized by the Longfellow House, Cafe Muse, and The National Poetry Quarterly, amongst others. Her works are up or forthcoming on Eunoia Review, Inflectionist Review, Dialogist, Aloka and elsewhere.
