Nasiba Younis: “The Bell Bell Helped Me Overcome My Psychological Illness” | books

My first memory is reading
The first books I became obsessed with were Enid Blyton’s Boarding School Stories, Mallory Towers and St. Clair. When I was eight, I used to hide it under my pillow and read it by the hallway light when I was supposed to be asleep.

My favorite book growing up
Matilda Roald Dahl. I felt woefully misunderstood by the world, and I longed to be adopted by a very pretty teacher who had nothing but cardboard for furniture. I spent a lot of time trying to move the pen through focus alone. Sometimes I still try.

The book that changed me as a teenager
I read Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar when I was sixteen, and it was a shocking and disconcerting introduction to mental illness in young women. Two years later, when I had a serious bout of mental illness, the bell ringer helped me visualize what was happening.

The book that made me want to be a writer
Scoop by Evelyn Waugh is a brilliantly funny satire of war journalism that still rings disturbingly real. This inspired me to write a comedy about the UN’s lunatics program in Iraq – which turned into my first novel, Essentially.

The book or author you returned to
I kept Donna Tartt’s The Secret History on my bookshelf for 10 years without ever reading it. Then I found myself alone and ill one Christmas and disappeared into her magical world. Sometimes a book is there for you at just the right time.

The book I re-read
In moments of sadness, I return to Joan Didion’s book The Year of Magical Thinking. It’s a perfect exploration of the madness of loss, and helps me feel less alone in my darkest times. I always have a big, cathartic cry when I read it.

The book that I could never read again
Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth. I’m sick to death of reading about hypersexualized misogynists who are obsessed with being victims. I don’t find it clever or interesting.

The writer who changed my mind
I was 19 when I read Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique and it completely reshaped my thinking about the role of marriage and children in my life. The book depicts the stifling effect of expectations on women to prioritize caring roles over everything else. He made me commit to making my own dreams come true, rather than expecting a kid to do it for me.

The book I’m currently reading
Slumberland by Paul Beatty. It may be a bit difficult, but he has some genius lines and harsh observations about the racism experienced by an African-American musician living in Berlin.

Please read
Whenever I want to feel cheerful, I read David Sedaris. Deep down, I’m an older gay man with health anxiety, obsessed with picking up trash and controlled by my Fitbit.