Mythos & Maya Book Club: January 2024

We'll be reading Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel & excerpts from Valmiki's Ramayana!

Hello, wonderful friends. J. Maya here with another exciting announcement: we are officially launching a book club! Huzzah!!! But, like many things in the J. Maya universe, it is a book club….with a twist. ;)

As someone who is ~obsessed~ with the ancient world, I have been captivated the last couple of years by the amount of mythological retellings that highlight underrepresented characters from classic texts. I speak a little about my fascination with underrated historical and literary voices in my song “Golden Age”; in fact, I was inspired to write this song after reading Circe by Madeline Miller, still one of my favorite books of all time. The omnipresence of mythological allusions in modern art is something I ponder at least once a day [one could argue it is my….Roman empire :’) ], and there is nothing I love more than being able to discuss retellings with other mythology-obsessed bookworms. Last year, I was invited by the Harvard classics department to deliver a guest lecture on how I’ve been able to incorporate Greek mythology into my songwriting, and it was easily one of the most fulfilling experiences of my career. I decided afterwards that I wanted to be able to experience this spirit of lively literary discussion with my incredible online community, too :)

And so! To ring in the new year, I am so excited to introduce “Mythos & Maya,” a book club dedicated to analyzing ancient texts and their corresponding modern interpretations. [For a little bit of context on the name: “Maya” means “magic” in Sanskrit, and I feel I am not alone in saying that reading is the closest we can get to modern-day magic!]

Each month, we will read both a selection of excerpts from an ancient text and a modern retelling of that text. Then, at the end of the month, we will gather via Instagram live to discuss what we’ve read! I’m hoping to invite special guests for these discussions, everyone ranging from authors to book-obsessed music and social media friends. And we have quite the book (& special guest) to kick us off for the month of January!

When Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel came out, I was not only thrilled by the subject matter, but also delighted by the representation. It brought me to tears on multiple occasions to see powerful Hindu women depicted with such care and complexity throughout the story. I grew up listening to stories from the Rāmāyaṇa, a foundational Hindu epic, in Bala Vihar (the Hindu equivalent of Sunday School), and from my parents and grandparents, and it was illuminating to see these characters written with such vivid prose and through a different lens. I am so excited to share that Vaishnavi herself will be joining us for our discussion of Kaikeyi and the Rāmāyaṇa this month. I can’t wait for you all to fall in love with this book like I did!

Thank you, as always, for being here, and for being the best group of people on Earth to talk about books and mythology and music with. If you wish to chat more about these things with an amazing group of people, feel free to join the (newly launched!) J. Maya discord, available here!: 

Lots of love and maya,

J. Maya <3

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Mythos & Maya

January 2024

To Read:

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel

Rāmāyaṇa of Valmiki, Synopsis by John Clay, available here

Selected Excerpts from Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa, available in English here:

• Book 1 [Bāla Kāṇḍa]: Cantos 1-3

• Book 2 [Ayodhyā Kāṇḍa]: Cantos 6-14, 66, 72-74

To Do:

Join us for an Instagram live & book discussion with author Vaishnavi Patel on January 30th at 5:30pm PST on the @j.maya Instagram account!