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:

Paradiso 17 by Hannah Lillith Assadi

Blurb from Goodreads

The intimate, sweeping tale of one man’s restless search for home the world over, as the pendulum of fate swings between loss and life, grief and euphoria, regret and hope

All his life, exile has been the shadow stitched to the sole of Sufien’s shoe.

Born in Palestine on the precipice of 1948’s Nakba, Sufien is forced to leave the only home he’s ever known, the one on the hill with a beautiful blue door. This is the precise moment when time stops making sense. He spends the rest of his life propelled forward, always on the way—although in search of what, he is never quite sure. In the dusty, oil-rich desert of Kuwait, he meets his first love and decides he must leave his family. In a small Italian university town, he spends his youth wrapped up in the sweet promise of the West and the forgetful assurance of wine. When life takes him to a gritty New York, he discovers his true vocation and falls for a Jewish woman born into a wholly different world. Finally, he finds himself recalled to the wild, vast open skies of the desert, in Arizona.

Sufien’s life spans friendships lost and maintained, a stint selling leathers at a tanner’s stall, the ineffable company of cats, and the freedom of the open road, the glowing pride of fatherhood, Sufi myths, prophetic dreams, and visions of the afterlife—and always, always, no matter how far he chases joy, the sweet, treacherous song of a balcony urging him to fly, to fall, to fall. The lyrical pages of Paradiso 17 weave in and out of time and space, beginning at the end and ending at the beginning. They are haunting, haunted with grief, struck through, as Dante once wrote, with “the arrow that the bow of exile / shoots first,” and yet they throb with light—not just the light that Sufien sees as he approaches his own end, but the brilliant light of a life lived.

Like all of our dead, Sufien still speaks, the book begins. Listen, this is his story.

Why I Want To Read It

Happy Monday, everyone! Just like that, we are nearly through the sixth month of the year. In a couple of days, we will be welcoming July. How time flies! As always, time takes its natural course, ever flowing forward, with no 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 rest of the year will be kind to you all. Things are still erratic, whether at work or in geopolitics. I sure hope the tension in the Middle East begins to de-escalate and that peace is gradually restored. I also hope things start to slow down at work. They have been hectic lately, and with month-end just over the horizon, I am hoping things will start looking up. 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, and I hope it unfolds 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. Still, I hope that as the week moves forward, you gradually gain a semblance of momentum. I hope everyone’s workweek goes smoothly. More importantly, I hope everyone is doing well—mentally, emotionally, and physically. After spending the first two months of the year reading works by Latin American and Caribbean writers, I have been immersing myself in the works of European authors. I chose to read European writers because most of the books on my 2026 reading challenge list are by European authors. Still, I had several works by European writers left on my reading challenge lists, hence the inevitable extension of this literary journey into June. I find it ironic that the books on my reading challenge lists remained unread, even though I began this venture into European literature specifically to complete them earlier than usual. Thankfully, I am down to the last book on those lists.

As the year approaches its halfway mark, literary publications have begun sharing their lists of the best books of the year so far. This is how I came across Hannah Lillith Assadi and her novel Paradiso 17. In fact, it was only today that I learned about Hannah Lillith Assadi. Interestingly, she was born to a Jewish mother and a Palestinian father. Her father was born in Palestine but fled with his family during the Nakba. They first lived in Syria before moving to Kuwait. He later studied in Perugia, Italy, before eventually settling in New York City. Her mother, on the other hand, grew up in Florala, Alabama, where her family was the town’s only Jewish family. She later moved to New York City, where she met her husband in 1983. The rest, as they say, is history. Their daughter grew up embracing both sides of her heritage. In 2017, she made her literary debut with the publication of Sonora. Her sophomore novel, The Stars Are Not Yet Bells, followed in 2022. Both novels were well received by literary critics.

Four years later, Assadi returns with Paradiso 17. The novel chronicles the life of Sufien, a Palestinian man displaced as a child during the Nakba. His story unfolds across continents, from Syria to Europe before eventually settling in the United States. The novel has been described as picaresque in nature. What I find particularly compelling, however, is the apparent parallel between the novel and the life story of Assadi’s father. This lends the novel an especially interesting dimension. That said, this is not to diminish how the Nakba has shaped the lives of countless Palestinians. With the ongoing tensions between Israel and Palestine, the novel remains both relevant and timely. For now, I hope I can secure a copy of it. 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!