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 Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

Blurb from Goodreads

Anna is a writer, author of one very successful novel, who now keeps four notebooks. In one, with a black cover, she reviews the African experience of her earlier year. In a red one she records her political life, her disillusionment with communism. In a yellow one she writes a novel in which the heroine relives part of her own experience. And in the blue one she keeps a personal diary. Finally, in love with an American writer and threatened with insanity, Anna tries to bring the threads of all four books together in a golden notebook.

Why I Want To Read It

It is Monday again, everyone’s, at least most, least favorite day of the week. But hey, Mondays also represents fresh starts. It opens new opportunities. With this, I hope that you all started or are starting the work week on a high note. I hope you were able to recoup your lost energy (or motivation) during the weekend and that you are opening the week with renewed vigor. I hope that the rest of the week will go well for everyone. Here in the Philippines, the head has become stifling. It has become oppressive of late. Sadly, there seems to be no reprieve as the coming weeks are bound to be even hotter.

I hope that, with one quarter down this year, the rest of the year will be kind to everyone. I hope that this year will brim with happiness and prosperity. More importantly, I hope everyone is doing well, in body, mind, and spirit. Reading-wise, April has become an extension of my foray into women’s fiction which I started last March. Toward the end of March, I realized that I still had some books written by women that I wanted to read. This journey took me to different parts of the world, from Asia to the Americas to even the Australian continent. My current read, Li Zi Shu’s The Age of Goodbyes transported me back to Asia. With more books lined up this month, I hope that this literary journey will still be as memorable and exciting as the one I had in March.

To kick off another blogging week, I am sharing a fresh Goodreads Monday update. While I am still immersed in the works of women writers, I have opted to shake things up by featuring random books, i.e., there will be no theme, for my Goodreads Monday updates this month. With this, I am featuring Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook. I believe it was in 2015 when I first encountered the book. There was something about it. Perhaps its length? It was rather thick and it was more than enough for me to consider reading it. But I think it was because it reminded me of The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. Interestingly, I have yet to read this book. There was also something holding me back. I am not sure what.

A couple of years later, I learned that Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007. In its citation, the Swedish Academy described her as “that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny.” She also has quite a very extensive oeuvre. I would acquire some of her works although I have still to read them. Maybe I will be reading one of them – either The Grass is Singing or The Good Terrorist – this month. This also reminded me of The Golden Notebook which I am now hoping to obtain and read in the future. Moreover, the book is listed as one of the 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die and has earned Lessing several accolades across the globe. Oh, it was also the only novel explicitly identified by the Swedish Academy in its write up for Lessing.

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!