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 Director by Daniel Kehlmann

Blurb from Goodreads

An artist’s life, a pact with the devil, a novel about the dangerous illusions of the silver screen.

G.W. Pabst, one of cinema’s greatest directors of the 20th century, was filming in France when the Nazis seized power. To escape the horrors of the new and unrecognizable Germany, he fled to Hollywood. But now, under the blinding California sun, the world-famous director suddenly looks like a nobody. Not even Greta Garbo, the Hollywood actress whom he made famous, can help him.

When he receives word that his elderly mother is ill, he finds himself back in his homeland of Austria, which is now called Ostmark. Pabst, his wife, and his young son are suddenly confronted with the barbaric nature of the regime. So, when Joseph Goebbels—the minister of propaganda in Berlin—sees the potential for using the European film icon for his directorial genius and makes big promises to Pabst and his family, Pabst must consider Goebbels’s thinly veiled order. While Pabst still believes that he will be able to resist these advances, that he will not submit to any dictatorship other than art, he has already taken the first steps into a hopeless entanglement.

Daniel Kehlmann’s novel about art and power, beauty and barbarism is a triumph. The Director shows what literature is capable of. 

Why I Want To Read It

Happy Monday, everyone! Just like that, we are nearly midway through the fourth month of the year. How time flies! As always, time takes its natural course, ever flowing forward, sans regard for any of us. It does not wait for anyone. As such, I hope the year is going—and will continue to go—well for everyone. I hope the year will be kind to you all. Things are still erratic, whether at work or geopolitics. I sure hope the tension in the Middle East will start to de-escalate. I hope that peace will gradually be restored. Meanwhile, here in the Philippines, the stifling summer heat is making its presence felt. Anyway, I hope everyone has had a good start to the workweek and the year. I hope everyone is in a place of comfort. The new week beckons with hope and fresh starts. I hope it flows in everyone’s favor. Wishing you continued success and happiness.

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. I hope that as the week moves forward, you slowly gain a semblance of momentum. I hope that everyone’s workweek will go smoothly. More importantly, I hope everyone is doing well—mentally, emotionally, and physically. In March, I commenced a literary journey across the European continent. This comes after spending the first two months of the year reading works of Latin American and Caribbean writers. It took me some time to decide where to land next, but in the end, I chose to read European writers, since most of the books on my 2026 reading challenge list are by European authors. With the number of European works on my reading challenges, I decided to extend this journey to April; I am currently reading Nobel Laureate in Literature Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s August 1914, over a decade after I read my first book by the Russian writer.

For this week’s Goodreads Monday update, I am featuring a book I first encountered early last year. Daniel Kehlmann’s The Director is actually a book I was looking forward to last year, even including it in one of my most anticipated 2025 book release lists. However, I was unable to secure a copy of the book. Over a year later, I would once again encounter the book. It was longlisted for the International Booker Prize; it would eventually be shortlisted. This aroused my interest in the book once again. Apparently, Kehlmann is a prolific writer who made his literary debut in 1997, at the age of twenty-two, with the publication of Beerholms Vorstellung. The book is yet to be translated into English. We eventually gained global recognition with Die Vermessung der Welt (2005). A year later, it was published in English as Measuring the World. It is the best-selling book in the German language since Patrick Süskind’s Perfume was released in 1985.

Kehlmann is also no stranger to accolades. Tyll (2018, translated into English in 2020) was longlisted for the International Booker Prize. Kehlmann is also a renowned playwright. This then makes his novel, The Director, an interesting work, or at least one that would naturally pique my interest. Further, the book is set during the Second World War. This is definitely right in my alley. Apparently, the novel is inspired by an actual historical figure, a prominent Austrian director who fled Nazi Germany for Hollywood. On top of this, literary pundits are calling The Director Kehlmann’s best work to date. I am now crossing my fingers that I obtain a copy of the book before the International Booker Prize winner is announced.

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!