Kathmandu, Oct. 31 -- Last week, while everyone around me was going door-to-door for Dashain tika, I was standing in front of my bookshelf, mulling over what to read.

Just before the festive season, I had bought a pile of books, including 'Tuesdays with Morrie' by Mitch Albom, the 1997 memoir that has received a waterfall of affection across the internet over the decades.The book had appeared on my social media feeds several times, with readers describing it as a tearjerker. I knew its general premise, but not the feeling of it. And that only made me want to pick it up and dive right into it. I wanted to picture my own life with Morrie, and I wanted the book to be a space where I could cry about it.

Nearly thirty years after its publica...