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:

Eline Vere by Louis Couperus

Blurb from Goodreads

Eline Vere is a passionate and rebellious young socialite, living in The Hague in the late 19th century. Driven by a highly active imagination, she attempts to escape the narrow confines of her bourgeois existence, and to force reality to live up to her dreams – but the world has other plans. In Eline Vere, with its fascinating heroine and supporting cast of her female friends and relatives, Couperus minutely and vividly evokes the characters, conventions, manners and hypocrisies of Dutch society in 1889 – and yet engages with topics that are generally debated to this day.

Why I Want To Read It

Happy Monday, everyone! Just like that, we are already on the second half of the fifth 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 remains intense. Thankfully, there were occasional rains in the past few days. Still, the heat remains stifling, alarming even. Anyway, I hope everyone has had a good start to the workweek. 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. After spending the first two months of the year reading works of Latin American and Caribbean writers, I commenced a journey across the European continent in March. 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. I have extended this journey to April because I still have several European literary works on my reading challenges. Extending this journey to May is also a foregone conclusion.

For this week’s Goodreads Monday update, I am featuring a book written by a European writer whom I have not encountered before. Actually, I am currently reading Anjet Daanje’s The Remembered Soldier, a book longlisted for the International Booker Prize. This is actually the very first book originally written in Dutch that I have read. As such, I decided to search for other works of Dutch writers to feature in this weekly meme. One of the names that appeared was Louis Couperus. Apparently, Louis Marie Anne Couperus is quite a renowned figure in Dutch literary circles, particularly toward the end of the 19th and the start of the 20th century. Over the course of his prolific literary career, he published novellas, poetry collections, fairy tales, and even short story collections. However, he gained more recognition with his novels.

Among his novels is Eline Vere. Originally published in 1889, Eline Vere is his most renowned work. I just learned that it was listed as one of the 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. What a pleasant surprise. I must credit the list for also introducing me to names I would not have normally encountered. The novel is considered a literary classic and charts the fortunes of its eponymous character. Eline Vere is a young socialite from the Hague. She had a highly creative imagination. For a woman of the period, this comes as a curse. She is essentially trapped in the restrictive high society of late 19th-century Holland. She must learn to overcome to fulfill her dream. This is an interesting premise. There are many reasons to look forward to the book. For now, I hope I get to secure 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!