As the Service95 Book Club turns three, we’re celebrating reading the world differently together, across 34 Monthly Reads handpicked by Dua, by taking a moment to reflect on how books can guide you through every twist and turn life can bring.
We’ve asked some literary friends of Service95 to share the books that capture specific decades in life, from your twenties to your sixties (and beyond). In this list, DJ, writer and multi-hyphenate creative Belinda Becker, 63, highlights the books that encapsulate the sixties.
Once upon a time, I was a voracious reader. As I got older and life and work became more demanding, I began to read less. But every time I pick up a book and am transported to another time, place or life, I realise the importance of reading. In this phase of life, I am making a conscious effort to carve out time to do it – there’s so much to learn. (Right now, that’s Masters Of The Living Energy, The Mystical World Of The Q’ero Of Peru by Joan Parisi Wilcox.)
My sixties are about being comfortable in my skin, being far smarter than the girl I was in my twenties and finally getting to the point where I don’t care about other people’s opinion of me. I’ve learned that true freedom is having less, not more; that my family and friends mean everything; that happiness is lying on a beach with a cold Red Stripe, watching the sunset with loved ones while listening to some lovers rock.
Now I’m in this decade, I have stories to tell. I have come to understand that being of service to others is more important than being of service to myself. That’s where this list comes in – here are five books to read at any age, but ones that have shaped my thoughts and reflected my experience since turning 60.
Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat
As an immigrant coming from Jamaica to the American South when I was 14, this coming-of-age novel resonated deeply with me. The themes of trauma, relocation, breaking the cycle of repetition and finding healing and liberation were all things with which I struggled. This book helped me name and confront these issues.
Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems And Meditations For Staying Human by Cole Arthur Riley
Entering my sixties as the world explodes in a fireball of genocide, ecocide, fascism, racism and artificial intelligence, this book has steadied and grounded me. I can always find a passage or poem that reminds me of my humanity and gives me the strength and courage to keep going.
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
While this book deals with the big themes of love, loss, death and betrayal, it reminds us that through all the tragedy that is life, it is the “small things” that make it worth living, and that’s why we can always look forward to “naaley” (tomorrow). The older I get, the truer this becomes.
Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje
After 40 years in the arts and NYC nightlife, I am thinking about writing my autobiography. This story of real-life jazz cornet player Buddy Bolden is my blueprint. It is written like a piece of jazz music, reflecting the complexity, pain and descent into madness that was Bolden’s life, a work of art about a work of art.
Rumi Hidden Music – Paintings And Poems, translated by Maryam Mafi & Azima Melita Kolin
Whenever I lack inspiration, I turn to this collection of poems and paintings. They talk about striving for a higher love, for a spiritual connection to the divine. As an artist, whether it’s acting, DJing or dancing, I aspire to reach that goal, something higher than myself and my ego.
