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 Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor

Blurb from Goodreads

Winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book (Eurasia) and of the 1990 Federation of Indian Publishers Award for the Best Book.

In this widely acclaimed novel, Shashi Tharoor has masterfully recast the two-thousand-year-old epic “The Mahabharata” with fictionalized – but highly recognizable – events and characters from twentieth-century Indian politics. Blending history and myth to chronicle the Indian struggle for freedom and independence, Tharoor directs his hilarious and often outrageous satire as much against Indian foibles and failings as against the bumblings of the British rulers. Despite its regional setting, this work can be enjoyed by readers unfamiliar with Indian history.

Why I Want To Read It

Happy Monday, everyone! Just like that, we are already in the last week of the first month of 2026. How time flies! It still feels like it was just yesterday when we welcomed the new year. Regardless, I hope that the year is going well for everyone. Things have certainly been getting more hectic in my new workplace. I am slowly being integrated into the processes, hence the increase in my responsibilities. However, I am still trying to pace myself. It is one of the things I am looking forward to this year, being able to perform in a new environment. It is going to be a challenging one. Anyway, I hope everyone has something to look forward to in this new year. The new year brims with hope and fresh starts. I hope 2026 will be kind to us all. I hope good news and kindness come knocking on your doors in the coming year. Wishing you continued success and happiness.

So yes. Mondays. 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. As such, I hope everyone is doing well—mentally, emotionally, and physically—and that we all make it through (or survive) the workweek. With the New Year comes new goals, including those related to reading. I am currently in the midst of a Latin American literature month. I am about to finish Oscar Hijuelos’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, a book that I included in m 2026 Top 26 Reading List. It is book I have been looking forward to because the book’s title piqued my interest. This is my first novel by the Cuban American writer; interestingly, most works of Cuban literature I read were written by writers who have immigrated to the United States.

However, it won’t be a Latin American writer who I will be featuring in this week’s Goodreads Monday update; the start of a new week also comes with a fresh Goodreads Monday update. I just learned that today is India Republic Day, a commemoration of the adoption of the Indian constitution and the country’s transition to a republic, which came to effect on January 26, 1950. With this, I am featuring a work of Indian literature. I must admit that while Indian literature is quite extensive, my exploration of it has been rather limited. It is even mostly through Salman Rushdie that I experienced the subcontinent’s vibrant literary heritage. However, I have been making a conscious effort to read more works of Indian literature. Among the Indian writers I just learned about is Shashi Tharoor.

I just learned that Tharoor is also a politician, with a lengthy career at the United Nations. However, he has always been a writer; he began writing at the age of six. At the age of ten, his first published story appeared in the Sunday edition of The Free Press Journal in Mumbai. In 1989, he published The Great Indian Novel. I know it sounds familiar because, in the United States, there has always been a discourse of what the “Great American Novel” is. I guess it is then not a surprise that The Great Indian Novel is a satire. Apparently, Tharoor used the Indian epic Mahabharata as an inspiration. He took it and recast it in the context of the Indian independence movement and the first three decades post-independence. The novel’s interesting premise is more than enough for me to include it on my perpetually growing reading list. Well, apparently, the book is also listed as one of the 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. I guess it is also not a surprise.

For now, I just hope I get to obtain 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!