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:

Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck

Blurb from Goodreads

Berlin. 11 July 1986. They meet by chance on a bus. She is a young student, he is older and married. Theirs is an intense and sudden attraction, fuelled by a shared passion for music and art, and heightened by the secrecy they must maintain. But when she strays for a single night he cannot forgive her and a dangerous crack forms between them, opening up a space for cruelty, punishment and the exertion of power. And the world around them is changing too: as the GDR begins to crumble, so too do all the old certainties and the old loyalties, ushering in a new era whose great gains also involve profound loss.

From a prize-winning German writer, this is the intimate and devastating story of the path of two lovers through the ruins of a relationship, set against the backdrop of a seismic period in European history.

Why I Want To Read It

Happy Monday everyone! We have just entered the third week of June How time flies. I hope that the past five months of the year have been kind to everyone. I hope that the remainder of the year will shower everyone with blessings and good news. We still have at least six months to go after our heart’s desire, to complete the goals we wanted to achieve this year. Reading-wise, I have quite some lofty goals and I am crossing my fingers. I hope we end this year triumphantly. More importantly, for us to achieve our goals and dreams this year, I hope everyone remains healthy, in body, mind, and spirit, for the entirety of the year.

With a new week ahead, I hope that everyone had a great start to the new work week. I know, most of us, including yours truly, hate Mondays. But seen from a different light, Mondays represent fresh starts. It provides us a new window of opportunity to go after our goals. As such, I hope everyone had a great start to the work week. I hope everyone started the work week on a high note even though they still feel sluggish. Thankfully, today is a holiday here in the Philippines. Here’s to a great work week ahead; may it be filled with good tidings and positive energy. Brush those negativities away.

To kick off another blogging week, I am featuring a fresh Goodreads Monday update. Because of the number of works of European Literature that I intend to read – there is quite a lot – June has shaped up to be an extension of my May reading month. In May, I focused on the works of Nobel Laureates in Literature but for June, I have focused on books on my active reading challenges and some that I have been wanting to read; I just published my review of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Devils and I am about to start reading my first novel by my namesake, Karl Ove Knausgård. To align with the main reading theme, I have featured works of European literature I am looking forward to in my Goodreads Monday update.

For this week, I am featuring German writer Jenny Erpenbeck’s Kairos. Before this year, I had never heard of the German writer nor had I encountered any of her works. It was through the International Booker Prize that I first heard of her. Apparently, Erpenbeck is also an opera director and studied theater at the Humboldt University of Berlin before pursuing  Music Theater Director at the Hanns Eisler Music Conservatory. Apart from directing, Erpenbeck pursued a career as a writer. Her earlier works were novellas. In 2008, she published her debut novel, Heimsuchung (Visitation).

Her latest novel Kairos was published in 2021 and was made available to Anglophone readers in 2023. Kairos, was announced as part of the International Booker Prize long list; it was more than enough to capture my interest. The book would eventually make the shortlist and was recently announced as the winner of the prestigious literary prize. This is chief among the reasons why I am looking forward to reading Kairos. This is on top of being able to explore the works of a writer whose oeuvre I have not explored before. 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!