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:

Floodlines by Saleem Haddad

Blurb from Goodreads

Set between London and Baghdad, Saleem Haddad’s brilliant second novel is a sweeping, multigenerational tale of art, exile, memory, and the enduring legacies of war.

In the summer of 2014, three long estranged Iraqi-British sisters are pulled back into each other’s orbit by the rediscovery of their late father’s long-lost paintings. Beautiful, elusive Zainab; embittered, practical Mediha; and headstrong, queer Ishtar each lay claim to their father’s legacy—an artistic and personal inheritance entwined with betrayal, exile, and a homeland they no longer recognize.

As the sisters fight to preserve, erase, or repurpose the past, Zainab’s estranged son Nizar, a war correspondent haunted by trauma and heartbreak, returns to the family fold. With the reemergence of buried memories comes a reckoning, and the family is forced to confront the personal and political betrayals that tore them apart.

Spanning continents and decades—from 1950s Baghdad to contemporary London, from the Tigris River to Yemeni refugee camps—Floodlines is at once an intimate family drama and, in its scope, a modern epic. It is a rare novel that bridges the historic and the immediate and a heartfelt meditation on what it means to belong, to create, to endure.

Why I Want To Read It

Happy Monday, everyone! We are already in the ninth month of the year, and we are nearly midway through it. 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. 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. I am now in my second week of reporting to my new job, and things are starting to look up. While I am a little nervous about the pressure that comes with my new responsibilities, I am looking forward to what the future has in store for me. I hope that this reversal of fortune will continue until the end of the year. I hope and pray that everyone is being showered with blessings and positive news as well, especially during the last stretch of the year. I also hope everyone has had a good start to the workweek. Wishing you continued success and happiness. I hope everyone is doing well in body, mind, and spirit.

I know not many people get excited about Mondays (though I’m sure a few are out there). Yet the new week beckons with hope and fresh starts, and I hope it unfolds in everyone’s favor. Here in the Philippines, the sun has finally shone. It has been a while since we have seen the sun here in the northern part of the country. The monsoon season has surely made its presence felt. Anyway, I hope that as the week progresses, you gradually gain some momentum. I hope everyone’s workweek goes smoothly. More importantly, I hope everyone is doing well mentally, emotionally, and physically. With the commencement of a new month comes a new literary venture. After touring across the Asian continent, I am now crossing the Pacific to the United States of America. Apparently, I have quite a lot of American books in my reading challenges. Still, I hope that this literary journey is going to be a memorable one.

My current read, Michael Punke’s The Revenant, is part of my 2026 Beat the Backlist Challenge. This week’s featured book, however, is not the work of an American writer. As the year approaches its halfway mark, literary publications often share their lists of the best books of the year so far. This is how I came across Saleem Haddad and his novel Floodlines. Honestly, it was only today that I learned about the Arab writer, whose full name is Saleem Yacoub Saleem Haddad (سليم حداد). He was born to an Iraqi-German mother and a Palestinian-Lebanese father. Apparently, he is also a member of the queer community and made his literary debut in 2016 with his critically acclaimed novel, Guapa. He has also published a number of short stories, including one for the Palestinian sci-fi anthology Palestine +100. He also writes for film and television. A decade after making his literary debut, Haddad made his long-awaited literary comeback with the publication of Floodlines.

Like its predecessor, it was warmly received by literary pundits and readers alike. It was even listed by the New York Times as one of its best books of the year so far. Floodlines is set between London and Baghdad, mostly in the summer and autumn of 2014, when the Islamic State tightened its grip on Iraq. Apparently, the story begins much earlier. Art, it seems, is at the heart of the story and the thread that connects the characters across time. The story, it seems, weaves in and out of the past and the present, from 1925, when artist Haj Akram, a former officer of the Ottoman Empire, was captured and imprisoned by the Atatürk government, to 2014, when three long-estranged people are pulled back into each other’s orbit by the rediscovery of their late father’s long-lost paintings. The premise itself is interesting, more than enough to pique my interest.

For now, I 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 and keep safe!