Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme that was started by @Lauren’s Page Turners. This meme is quite easy to follow – just randomly pick a book from your to-be-read list and give the reasons why you want to read it. It is that simple.

This week’s book:

Bewilderment by Richard Powers

Blurb from Goodreads

A heartrending new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning and #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory.

The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin’s emotional control, one that involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother’s brain….

With its soaring descriptions of the natural world, its tantalizing vision of life beyond, and its account of a father and son’s ferocious love, Bewilderment marks Richard Powers’s most intimate and moving novel. At its heart lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperiled planet?

Why I Want To Read It

Happy first day of the week everyone! Today is also the first Monday of September. Each day is becoming bleaker here in the Philippines as the number of COVID19 cases is exponentially rising. It is alarming but there is no other way to survive in this period uncertainty than to stay hopeful and remain positive positive. Anyway, another work week has also commenced, just one of many reasons why Monday is my least favorite day of the week (haha). Thankfully, month end closing activities are done but more finance-related activities are going to keep me occupied the entire month. Nevertheless, I am hoping that you are all doing great, in mind, body and spirit. I hope you will all have (or had) a great day and an even greater start to the week. I am praying that this pandemic will end soon.

To start the week right (I hope), I am posting my first Goodreads Monday update for September. Just like what I did for South American and Japanese literature months, I have decided to extend my “new” books reading journey. This is part of my personal reading resolutions because I have always been a backlist type of reader. I have completed six “new” books so far and I am looking forward to reading more of these new books in September. I am currently reading Nadia Owusu’s Aftershocks, which was the book I featured in last week’s update. For this week’s update, I am featuring a writer whose works I have never previously read. I first encountered Richard Powers through his novel, The Overstory. I loved the book’s nature-inspired cover but the bigger surprise was learning it won the Pulitzer Prize. Despite this, I had my reservations.

A couple of months later, I would come across Richard Powers again, through a different but equally prestigious literary award. His newest novel, Bewilderment, I have learned, was longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize for Fiction. To be honest, I was again apprehensive about the book. However, I came across several book blogs which gave very positive feedback on the book. On one bookish discussion, it was the frontrunner for their Booker Prize forecast, with a nearly perfect score of 19/20. Earlier today, I again came across another recommendation for the book, naming it as a strong candidate for the shortlist; the shortlist will be announced on September 14. With all of these, my reservations on Powers and his works were finally abated. This made me look forward to what Powers’ prose has in store. I just hope I get to gain a copy of the book this year.

How about you fellow reader? What recent novel have you added to your reading list? What made you add it to your list? I hope you could share your answers in the comment box. For now, have a happy Monday!

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