Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme started by @Lauren’s Page Turners but is currently 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 explain why you want to read it. It is that simple.

This week’s book:

Long Island by Colm Tóibín

Blurb from Goodreads

From the beloved, critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling author comes a spectacularly moving and intense novel of secrecy, misunderstanding, and love, the story of Eilis Lacey, the complex and enigmatic heroine of Brooklyn, Tóibín’s most popular work, twenty years later.

Eilis Lacey is Irish, married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers, all of whom live in neighboring houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with their wives and children and Tony’s parents, a huge extended family that lives and works, eats and plays together. It is the spring of 1976 and Eilis, now in her forties with two teenage children, has no one to rely on in this still-new country. Though her ties to Ireland remain stronger than those that hold her to her new land and home, she has not returned in decades.

One day, when Tony is at his job and Eilis is in her home office doing her accounting, an Irishman comes to the door asking for her by name. He tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s child and that when the baby is born, he will not raise it but instead deposit it on Eilis’s doorstep. It is what Eilis does—and what she refuses to do—in response to this stunning news that makes Tóibín’s novel so riveting.

Long Island is about longings unfulfilled, even unrecognized. The silences in Eilis’ life are thunderous and dangerous, and there’s no one more deft than Tóibín at giving them language. This is a gorgeous story of a woman alone in a marriage and the deepest bonds she rekindles on her return to the place and people she left behind, to ways of living and loving she thought she’d lost.

Why I Want To Read It

Happy Monday everyone! It is the start of a new work week! I hope everyone is starting the work week on a high note even though Monday is nearly everyone’s least favorite day of the week. I should know because I am part of this everyone. How I wish the weekends were longer but, unfortunately, this is the reality that we are dealing with. I am just happy that Friday is a holiday here in the Philippines and so is next Monday. Speaking of. I just realized today is the second to the last Monday of August. Time flies so fast that I didn’t even notice this until I checked the calendar. Anyway, I hope everyone started the workweek on a high note. I hope that the rest of the week will go great. I hope that the remainder of the year will shower all of us with blessings, positive energy, and good news. More importantly, I hope everyone will be healthy, in mind, body, and spirit.

As has been customary, I am commencing another blogging week with a fresh Goodreads Monday update. After over three months of traveling across the European continent – not physically – I finally concluded my foray into European literature. This meant that I had also commenced a new literary journey. After thinking it through, I opted to read recently published works that I have been looking forward to; I originally planned to read works of Asian literature but the announcement of the Booker Prize longlist made me rethink it. I just finished reading Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water, a book I have been looking forward to since last year when it was touted by many critics and readers alike as one of the best 2023 releases. I am about to read Rachel Khong’s Real Americans, part of my 2024 Top 10 Books I Look Forward To List. It will be my 1,199th novel.

But before deciding on reading Real Americans, I was actually considering reading Colm Tóibín’s latest novel, Long Island. To make up for pushing it back, I have decided to feature the book in this week’s Goodreads Monday update. The Irish writer is one writer whose works I have been looking forward to reading. I finally ticked this off last year when I read Brooklyn, his highly revered work. Everyone thought that it would be a standalone novel. Apparently, Tóibín has made it clear that he will never write sequels. Just like many things in life, this can change and well it did as he published Long Island, the sequel to Brooklyn, fifteen years after its successor. I did like Brooklyn, hence, it was a no-brainer for me to include Long Island in my growing reading list.

I am looking forward to meeting Eilis Lacey once again. I am curious about what happens to her after the events covered by Brooklyn. I also can’t wait to be embraced again by Tóibín’s captivating storytelling and atmospheric writing. After reading the books that are part of my 2024 Top 10 Books I Look Forward To list, I will resolve to read Long Island. 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!