Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme that was started by @Lauren’s Page Turners but is now currently being hosted by Emily @ Budget Tales Book Blog. 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:

House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday

Blurb from Goodreads

The magnificent Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of a proud stranger in his native land.

He was a young American Indian named Abel, and he lived in two worlds. One was that of his father, wedding him to the rhythm of the seasons, the harsh beauty of the land, the ecstasy of the drug called peyote. The other was the world of the twentieth century, goading him into a compulsive cycle of sexual exploits, dissipation, and disgust. Home from a foreign war, he was a man being torn apart, a man descending into hell.

Why I Want To Read It

Happy first day of the week everyone! It is Monday again. Yes, I know, the least favorite day of the week of many. And by many, that includes me. With Monday comes the start of the work and academic weeks. Because of what it has come to mean in our lives, many of us don’t appreciate Mondays. Viewed from another perspective, Mondays are also about beginnings. It ushers in hope, a door to new opportunities. It gives us a new chance to do better, to be better. It is a constant reminder that no matter how messy the past days have been, we can always restart. Anyway, I hope you started the week on the right note and I hope that the rest of the week will go great for everyone. I hope that you are all doing well and are in a good state of health, both in your mind and body. As the year approaches its final stretch, I hope that you all get repaid for all the hard work you’ve poured in. I hope that all your prayers get answered. My biggest wish, however, is for COVID-19 and monkeypox to be finally eradicated. With this, I remind everyone to be diligent in observing minimum health protocols.

To kickstart the blogging week, I am posting a new Goodreads Monday update. After spending two months traveling across Asia, starting in Japan to the rest of the continent, I started to notice how I have been lagging behind in most of my 2022 reading challenges. To avoid cramming towards the end of the year, I decided to focus on my active reading challenges in the last four months of the year. However, for September, my focus is on American literature; most of the books I listed on my reading challenges are works of American literature. To align with this month’s theme, I am also going to feature works of American literature I want to read in this month’s Goodreads Monday updates. The book I am featuring for this week’s update, however, is not part of any of my reading challenges: N. Scott Momaday’s House of Dawn.

Last week, I featured the work of an Asian-American writer. The idea then hit me. Why not feature works of American writers from different ethnic backgrounds? The United States, after all, has become the melting pot of different cultures. But for this week, I am featuring the original settlers of the American continent, the American Indians. While I have read quite a lot of American literature – it is, by far, my most read – my foray into the works of American Indians is quite limited. Louise Erdrich and Alexie Sherman are the first, if not the only names that come to my mind when American Indian is mentioned. The most logical choice to feature this week then is N. Scott Momaday’s House of Dawn.

Ironically, or perhaps not, House of Dawn was a book I randomly picked up from an online bookseller. I barely had any iota on what the book was about nor have I read any of Momaday’s works before. As always, my curiosity got the best of me. Besides, the book, I learned after a quick internet search, won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. This further piqued my interest in the book. Moreover, the book is considered the first major work of the Native American Renaissance and has been cited by many American Indian novelists, including Erdrich, as a major inspiration for their own works. On the other hand, Momaday has built quite a hefty reputation and an extensive resume. He has written poems, short stories, a memoir, and even children’s stories. His works earned him several accolades in his prolific career.

How about you fellow reader? Are there works of American Indian literature you want to recommend? Do drop it in the comment box. For now, happy Monday and, as always, happy reading!

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