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:

The Healing Season of Pottery by Yeon Somin

Blurb from Goodreads

Set for international release this fall, this cozy Korean bestseller invites readers into a warm, sunlit pottery studio where a burned-out young TV broadcast writer begins to heal, working the clay, piece by piece, season by season.

After breaking down at the office and abruptly quitting her job, thirty-year-old Jungmin holes up in her apartment, speaking to no one for days on end. When she finally emerges, she stumbles upon a pottery studio in her neighborhood and is invited in by the mysterious workshop teacher. The smell of clay, the light filtering through the plant filled windows, the friendly cat, and the incredible coffee the students drink awaken her senses and make her feel alive and inspired for the first time in months.

As the seasons change, Jungmin slowly returns to herself and builds a new community with the other members of the studio, who are all working through their own pasts at the pottery wheel. When the holidays approach and snow piles up on the studio windowsill, Jungmin realizes how much she has changed—with her hands busy and her mind clear, she may be ready to face the memories she’s been running from and open her heart.

For fans of What You Are Looking For Is in the Library and Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop, Yeon’s charming English-language debut is a testament to the joy of slowing down in a fast-paced world, and an homage to the art of ceramics and the power of friendship. Readers won’t want to leave the enchanting world of The Healing Season of Pottery after the final page.

Why I Want To Read It

Happy Monday everyone! Well, technically it should be “Happy Tuesday everyone!” It is the start of yet another workweek. Oh, I know. Most of us are suffering from a weekend hangover; I am also suffering from one. How I wish weekends were longer, even just for a day; one day is for resting, another for completing household chores, and the last day to pursue things that we are passionate about. But then again, this is our reality. At least for now. We have no recourse but to pick up our energies quickly because we still have a long week to go. As such, I hope everyone started the workweek on a high note. I am looking forward to what the week has in store; it did start on a busy note. Mondays, after all, also present new opportunities to learn, start a new adventure, or even explore new worlds. I hope everyone will be able to gradually build momentum as the week moves forward. I hope everyone makes it through the week. More importantly, I hope everyone is doing well, in mind, body, and spirit.

Time does fly fast. We are already in the first week of the last month of the year. The year is drawing to its inevitable conclusion. It is just too bad that we cannot slow down or keep it from moving forward. This also means that we are inching closer to the start of a new year. I hope that 2024 has been good and that the remaining months of the year will be filled with kindness, blessings, and good tidings, good news. I hope your prayers get answered or that you at least achieve a sense of clarity for anything ambiguous. I hope that everyone gets repaid for their hard work. I hope that everyone achieves all their goals this year. With several reading challenges still ongoing, my November reading journey was shaped by books from these challenges. There is, I guess, nothing new with me cramming toward the end of the year. With my 2024 Top 24 Reading List done, I am focusing on the remaining five books on my 2024 Beat the Backlist Challenge.

Back to this weekly book meme. With no specific reading theme in the past few months, the books I have been featuring on this weekly update are an eclectic mix. Some share some similarities. For one, they were all published this year, or at least their English translations were released this year. One such book is this week’s featured book, Yeon Somin’s The Healing Season of Pottery. The book has been taking bookshelves by storm; it is ubiquitous. One driver for this, I guess, was the recent recognition of her countrywoman, Han Kang, by the Swedish Academy; Kang is the first female Asian writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. To be fair, even before Kang’s announcement, works by Korean writers have slowly been making it to local bookstores and even earning literary awards across the world. I still, however, consider Kang’s successful The Vegetarian as a catalyst for this renewed interest in Korean literature.

Yeon Somin is just among the many Korean writers who are slowly taking the world by storm. Earlier this year, I read Hwang Boreum’s Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop. A work of slice-of-life, I liked the book so when I learned that the book shares parallels with The Healing Season of Pottery, my interest was further piqued. Both feature female millennials who were both undone by the pressures of a fast-paced life; at least this is what I get from The Healing Season of Pottery’s blurb (and synopsis since I already have a copy of the book). For all of these reasons, I am very much looking forward to The Healing Season of Pottery. If time allows it, I just might be able to read it before the year ends. Otherwise, it will be a part of my 2025 literary opener.

How was your Monday, Tuesday rather? 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!