Hello, readers! It is Monday again! As it is Monday, welcome to another #5OnMyTBR update. The rule is relatively simple. I must pick five books from my to-be-read piles that fit the week’s theme.

For now, I have chosen to feature books where text dominates the cover.

5OnMyTBR is a bookish meme hosted by E. @ Local Bee Hunter’s Nook where you choose five books from your to-be-read pile that fit that week’s theme. If you’d like more info, head over to the announcement post!

Title: The Two of Us
Author: Alberto Moravia
Translator (from Italian): Angus Davidson
Publisher: Panther
Publishing Date: 1974 (1971)
No. of Pages: 352

Synopsis: 

Federico, balding, paunchy scriptwriter is trying to crack the big time in Italian movies. But he has a few enemies to cope with – and one very big enemy in particular: his gigantic, demanding ‘manhood’, which he wryly dubs Federicus Rex. Rico and Federicus Rex are in continual conflict, Rico believing that abstinence makes the mind grow stronger, his remarkable member contradicting in a most forthright and obvious way. Together the two of them bounce through a series of hilarious, Decamoron-like sexual misadventures…

Title: While We Were Dreaming
Author: Clemens Meyer
Translator (from German): Katy Derbyshire
Publisher: Fitzcarraldo Editions
Publishing Date: 2023 (2007)
No. of Pages: 597

Synopsis: 

Rico, Mark, Paul and Daniel were 13 when the Berlin Wall fell in autumn 1989. Growing up in Leipzig at the time of reunification, they dream of a better life somewhere beyond the brewery quarter. Every night they roam the streets, partying, rioting, running away from their fears, their parents and the future, fighting to exist, killing time. They drink, steal cars, feel wrecked, play it cool, longing for real love and true freedom. Startlingly raw and deeply moving, While We Were Dreaming is the extraordinary debut novel by one of Germany’s most ambitious writers, full of passion, hope and despair.

Title: Wake Me Up At 9:00 in the Morning
Author: A Yi
Translator (from Chinese): Nicky Harman
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Publishing Date: 2022 (2018)
No. of Pages: 401

Synopsis:

A thrilling journey through China’s dark criminal underworld, from a celebrated voice in Chinese literature

When Hongyang is found dead after a night of debauched drinking, it looks as if his reign of terror has finally come to an end.

Few in this insular community have much reason to mourn his passing: Hongyang is an infamous mob boss, a man with plenty of enemies. But now it seems that his years of crime have also earned him some very dangerous friends.

As his funeral draws near, those who knew him come together to look back on a life characterised by corruption, deceit and a flair for violence. Their recollections will keep Hongyang’s legacy alive, with terrifying consequences.

From the master of Chinese noir fiction comes this explosive new novel about the power of one man, unraveled by a tangled web of secrets.

Title: Love
Author: Toni Morrison
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Publishing Date: 2003
No. of Pages: 202

Synopsis:

May, Christine, Heed, Junior, Vida – even L: all women obsessed with Bill Cosey. The wealthy owner of the famous Cosey’s Hotel and Resort, he shapes their yearnings for father, husband, lover, guardian, and friend, yearnings that dominate the lives of these women long after his death. Yet while he is either the void in, or the center of, their stories, he himself is driven by secret forces – a troubled past and a spellbinding woman named Celestial.

This audacious exploration into the nature of love – its appetite, its sublime possession, its dread – is rich in characters, striking scenes, and a profound understanding of how alive the past can be.

A major addition to the canon of one of the world’s literary masters.

Title: Forgiving Imelda Marcos
Author: Nathan Go
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publishing Date: 2023
No. of Pages: 226

Synopsis:

After suffering a serious heart injury, Lito Macaraeg reaches out to his estranged son – a journalist who lives in the United States, far from Lito’s Manila nursing home – to promise him a scoop: the story of a secret meeting between Imelda Marcos and Corazon Aquino years before. Imelda, best known for her excessive shoe collection, was the flamboyant wife of the late Philippine dictator; Corazon was the wife of the opposition politician who was allegedly killed by the Marcoses. An unassuming housewife, Corazon rose up after her husband’s death to lead the massive rallies that eventually toppled the Marcos dictatorship.

Lito was Corazon’s personal driver for many years, and her only companion on the journey form Manila to Baguio City to meet Imelda. Throughout the long drive, Lito’s loyalty to his employer is pitted against his own moral uncertainty about Corazon’s desire to forgive Imelda. But as Lito tells his son the tale of these two women, his own story and his own failings slowly come to light. He delves into his past: his neglectful father, who joined a Communist guerrilla movement; their life in a mountain encampment headed by a charismatic priest; and his struggles with poverty and ambition. In the end, Lito is left to contemplate the meaning and possibility of forgiveness.

In Forgiving Imelda Marcos, Nathan Go weaves a deeply intimate alternative history that explores power and powerlessness, the nature of guilt, and what we owe to those we love.