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:

The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati

Blurb from Goodreads

Often likened to Kafka’s The Castle, The Tartar Steppe is both a scathing critique of military life and a meditation on the human thirst for glory. It tells of young Giovanni Drogo, who is posted to a distant fort overlooking the vast Tartar steppe. Although not intending to stay, Giovanni suddenly finds that years have passed, as, almost without his noticing, he has come to share the others’ wait for a foreign invasion that never happens. Over time the fort is downgraded and Giovanni’s ambitions fade until the day the enemy begins massing on the desolate steppe…

Why I Want To Read It

Just like that, it is Monday again, the first Monday of March. I hope you all had a great weekend that helped or will help you get through the day; I know many of you, like me, are still feeling a little sluggish. How I wish weekends were three days long: one day to be used for resting and recuperating, another for doing chores, and another for pursuing personal pursuits. I guess this is just going to be wishful thinking but who knows, one day we will have a three-day weekend. With this, I hope that in the coming week, you will be able to accomplish everything you set out to achieve. I hope that your week will be productive. However, if you are not up to it, I hope you spend the week resting and recovering. More importantly, I hope everyone is doing well, in body, mind, and spirit.

As has been customary I am kickstarting the blogging week with a fresh Goodreads Monday update, my first for March. After spending January reading exclusively books published in the previous year, I turned February into an Irish and British literature reading month. As I still have a bunch of Irish and British books to catch up on, I decided to extend my foray into this part of the literary world this March. However, for this Goodreads Monday update, I am featuring neither a book published in 2022 nor a work of a British or Irish writer. Rather, I am featuring Dino Buzzati’s The Tartar Steppe.

Honestly, I have never heard of Dino Buzzati until today. Had the subject for this 5 on my TBR post not been works of magical realism, I would have not encountered the Italian writer. His book, The Tartar Steppe was listed by Book Riot as one of the 100 Must Reads of Magical Realism (the list was as of October 2017). Until recently (maybe about seven years ago), I wasn’t interested in the works of magical realism. I wasn’t one to indulge in fantasy I guess. Moreover, I got a beating when I read my first works of this genre: Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 and Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. I literally was baptized in fire. These books are among the most complex and challenging books I read. I would have given up on the genre entirely but I guess I can be adamant at times so I decided to stick with it. Fast forward a couple of years later, magical realism is now one of my go-to genres. It has also given me some of my most memorable reading journeys; Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children is a standout.

Anyway, upon checking The Tartar Steppe is listed as one of the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. This gives me more reasons to read the book. Moreover, it has been described as similar to Franz Kafka’s The Castle. Speaking of which, I really should pick up that book soon, perhaps for my next venture into European literature? You see, I have yet to read one of Kafka’s works. Anyway, I hope I get to obtain a copy of The Tartar Steppe AND get to read The Castle. How about you fellow reader? How was your Monday? What books have you added to your reading list? Do drop it in the comment box. For now, happy Monday and, as always, happy reading!

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