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:

Samarkand by Amin Maalouf 

Blurb from Goodreads

Accused of mocking the inviolate codes of Islam, the Persian poet and sage Omar Khayyam fortuitously finds sympathy with the very man who is to judge his alleged crimes. Recognising genius, the judge decides to spare him and gives him instead a small, blank book, encouraging him to confine his thoughts to it alone. Thus begins the seamless blend of fact and fiction that is Samarkand. Vividly re-creating the history of the manuscript of the Rubaiyaat of Omar Khayyam, Amin Maalouf spans continents and centuries with breathtaking vision: the dusky exoticism of 11th-century Persia, with its poetesses and assassins; the same country’s struggles nine hundred years later, seen through the eyes of an American academic obsessed with finding the original manuscript; and the fated maiden voyage of the Titanic, whose tragedy led to the Rubaiyaat’s final resting place—all are brought to life with keen assurance by this gifted and award-winning writer.

Why I Want To Read It

Happy Monday everyone! I do hope everyone finds the happy on Mondays. I know. Monday is nearly everyone’s least favorite day of the week. How to recover from the weekend funk? I do hope that you were able to rest and recover during the weekend. I hope that despite it being a brief reprieve, it has prepared you for the tough workweek ahead. Thankfully, the Philippines will see yet another shortened workweek. Due to it being the Holy Week, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday are holidays. It is a time to reflect for the Christians and a time to rest for the non-Christians. Nevertheless, I hope you had a great start to the workweek, or at least you kicked the ground running. I hope everyone makes it through the week. More importantly, I hope everyone is doing well, in mind, body, and spirit, not only this week but for the rest of the year.

Speaking of. How time flies! We are already midway through the fourth month of the year. It feels like a lot has happened while, at the same time, not that much has happened since the year started. Regardless, we are provided with a new month and a new opportunity to go after what our heart desires. How has the year been? I hope it has been kind and generous to everyone. If it is going otherwise, I hope the coming months will shower everyone with blessings, good news, and kindness. With the start of the week is a fresh Goodreads Monday update. This weekly blogging meme has, over the years, become a weekly ritual. It allows me to feature books I am looking forward to. This year, I commenced my reading journey with works of East Asian writers. With the first quarter of the year done, I have transitioned to full Asian literature. As such, I will be featuring works of Asian writers in this month’s Goodreads Monday updates.

For this week’s featured book, I took a book from a section of Asia – well, the entire world actually – that I have rarely explored: Central Asia. I have been meaning to expand my reading forays into this region but obtaining books can be quite a challenge. Nevertheless, I am featuring a book about the region. It was just today that I came across Amin Maalouf. He is not Central Asian but he is born in Beirut, Lebanon so he is still Asian. I just also learned that he is quite a figure in literary circles. His body of work has even earned him the 2010 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature; I only learned about this Prize after Haruki Murakami was recognized by the Princess of Spain back in 2023. This only establishes how Maalouf is a highly decorated writer who also wrote nonfiction works and even texts for musical compositions.

Among his works is Samarkand which was originally published in 1988 in French – Maalouf is now residing in France although he also writes in Arabic – as Samarcande. This novel is just right up my alley because it is a work of historical fiction. The story revolves around the 11th-century Persian poet Omar Khayyám and his poetry collection Rubaiyat. I kept encountering Rubaiyat but because I am more of a fiction person, I haven’t ventured much into poetry. Anyway, I am interested to learn more about the Persian poet and, in the process, venture into the body of work of a renowned writer. For now, I just hope I get to obtain a copy of the book or any of Maalouf’s works for that matter. 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!