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:

What We Can Know by Ian McEwan

Blurb from Goodreads

2014 : At a dinner for close friends and colleagues, renowned poet Francis Blundy honors his wife’s birthday by reading aloud a new poem dedicated to her, ‘A Corona for Vivien’. Much wine is drunk as the guests listen, and a delicious meal consumed. Little does anyone gathered around the candlelit table know that for generations to come people will speculate about the message of this poem, a copy of which has never been found, and which remains an enduring mystery. 2119 : Just over one hundred years in the future, much of the western world has been submerged by rising seas following a catastrophic nuclear accident. Those who survive are haunted by the richness of the world that has been lost. In the water-logged south of what used to be England, Thomas Metcalfe, a lonely scholar and researcher, longs for the early twenty-first century as he chases the ghost of one poem, ‘A Corona for Vivian’. How wild and full of risk their lives were, thinks Thomas, as he pores over the archives of that distant era, captivated by the freedoms and possibilities of human life at its zenith. When he stumbles across a clue that may lead to the elusive poem’s discovery, a story is revealed of entangled loves and a brutal crime that destroy his assumptions about people he thought he knew intimately well. What We Can Know is a masterpiece, a fictional tour de force, a love story about both people and the words they leave behind, a literary detective story which reclaims the present from our sense of looming catastrophe and imagines a future world where all is not quite lost.

Why I Want To Read It

Happy Monday, everyone! Technically, it is already Tuesday. I know—not many people get excited about Mondays (though I’m sure a few are out there). I, too, am not exactly a fan. After all, we’ve got to start somewhere, and Monday is one of those starting points. It provides us an opportunity to work on our goals; ironically, in any endeavor, the start is often the hardest part. As such, I hope everyone had a restful weekend and is ready for the week ahead. The weather here in the Philippines has been unpredictable. Over the weekend, it has been overcast. The same is true today. The stifling Manila heat is slowly being replaced by the holiday breeze, a reminder that Christmas is just around the corner. The cold has led to an inevitable increase in cases of colds and coughs. With this, I hope everyone is doing well—mentally, emotionally, and physically—and that we all make it through (or survive) the workweek.

Time really does fly. Just like that, we’re already in the last month of the year, and we’re already halfway through it. In a couple of days, we will bid farewell to 2025 and welcome a new year. 2026 is just over the horizon. Despite the uncertainties the future holds, time keeps pressing forward—regardless of our readiness. While the future remains shrouded in uncertainty, there’s still much to look forward to. The new year brims with hope and fresh starts. I hope everything goes well for everyone in the remainder of the year. May the rest of the year be kind to us all and shower us with blessings, positivity, healing, and growth. I hope good news and kindness come knocking on your doors in the coming weeks. May you be rewarded for all the hard work you’ve put in this year. Wishing you continued success and happiness.

With the start of a new week also comes a new reading adventure, hence a fresh Goodreads Monday update. My venture into the vast landscape of American literature—and, by extension, African literature—is in full swing. This is in line with my goal of completing all my reading challenges and goals this year; the remaining books from these challenges were written by American and African writers. My current read, N. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn, however, is not part of any of these challenges. Nevertheless, I have been looking forward to exploring the Native American writer’s oeuvre, although it was only during the pandemic that I learned about him. Further, House Made of Dawn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1969.

Anyway, back to what this weekly meme is about. With the year drawing to a close, literary pundits and prominent publications have been releasing lists of their best reads of the year. 2025 was yet another memorable literary ride. However, there are several 2025 releases that I look forward to reading. Well, I wouldn’t say this is true with this week’s featured book, Ian McEwan’s What We Can Know. It has been a decade since I first came across the highly heralded British writer. His novel, Atonement, is my primer to his body of work and is easily one of my favorite works of historical fiction. Most recently, I read his Booker Prize-winning novel, Amsterdam. It is his fifth novel I have read. It was only recently that I learned about his latest release. I initially dismissed it. However, I had to take a second look after it was listed as one of the best books of the year.

Certainly, the novel’s premise piqued my interest. Of the books by McEwan I have read so far, this seems to be a deviation. Rather than taking the readers back to the past, What We Can Know transports the readers to the future. I guess this is his attempt at a dystopian novel, his own prognosis of the future. He does, I have noted, have a proclivity for writing about interesting albeit obscure subjects; this is true in Enduring Love and Amsterdam. It does seem that his latest novel grapples with subjects that are slowly becoming familiar in the ambit of literature. Nevertheless, it is something unique within McEwan’s literary sphere. This then makes me look forward to reading the book. I am interested in his view of the future, one that, from what I have read so far, he has yet to explore. I sure hope I get to acquire a copy of the book.

How about you, fellow readers? How was your Monday? What books have you recently added to your reading list? Drop your thoughts in the comments. For now—happy Monday, and as always, happy reading!