Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Delightful stubbornness

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

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A Man Called Ove is about a delightfully stubborn widower in Sweden. He has a strict logic that he applies to the world. He yearns for consistency and routine. Anyone who deviates from the order is likely inefficient and an idiot in his mind. He is suspicious of most things and prefers to abstain from all social things. I enjoyed his rising frustration at the computer store when he attempts to buy a computer. Despite his crankiness, Ove fell in love with a woman named Sonja. It was love at first sight on a train. The book flashes back to […]

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12/3/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No: 15 |

Airport fiction, a great read, and a new favorite.

Die Trying, What the Hell Did I Just Read, A Man Called Ove by Lee Child, David Wong, Fredrik Backman

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69. Die Trying by Lee Child (3 stars) I’m not entirely sure why I keep returning to these kinds of books. I don’t know what “kind” of book it is, other than “airport fiction”. You know the kind; the mass market vaguely defined fiction that goes down easy without leaving much of an aftertaste. Easily digested and forgettable, these books cover the literary landscape without leaving any kind of quantifiable mark. They exist to sell books, and they sell books because they exist. I don’t mean this to be acidic. I have nothing against Lee Child or Jack Reacher (or […]

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11/17/2017 | Post by

A Man Called Ove is a Curmudgeon, but One with a Heart

A Man Called Ove by Frederik Backman, Henning Koch (translator), George Newbern (narrator)

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I did a thing I don’t normally do, I watched the movie first. I had gotten A Man Called Ove on Audible some time ago, but kept holding off on it. I tend to pick the audiobook I want to listen to based on its length – how much time do I have to give it right now? Sitting at just over 9 hours you’d think I would have found a few days to listen before now, but I had not. With August quickly getting away from me (campers are exhausting, y’all) I decided now was the time. But only […]

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8/30/2017 | Post by

Just some nice books.

I Feel Bad About my Neck and A Man Called Ove by Nora Ephron and Fredrik Backman

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I Feel Bad about My Neck The charm of this book lies in the fact that the audiobook was read by Nora Ephron. I listened to the whole thing on a walk. This is a short collection of essays about aging in various kinds of ways, whether that means the effects on aging on your body or the simply just the passing of time. So those two themes, along with a few others, sort of permeate this whole collection. The essays include the frustration of carrying a purse, the frustrations of how your neck always shows your age even if […]

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8/11/2017 | Post by

I warned them that I don’t like to cry…

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

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 I read this book for a book club that I’m a part of.  When we voted on our July selection, I deliberately did not cast mine for this book.  Because I just KNEW.  I could tell from the description that it was one of those books that was going to make me cry.  Apparently this is something that lots of people enjoy however, and I was outvoted. The titular character is a middle-aged Swedish man named Ove, who has lost his wife and his job in the span of six months.  As his life revolved around the love of Sonja, […]

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7/24/2017 | Post by

I laughed, I cried, I considered buying a Saab.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

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Sometimes a story is able to take you someplace else. But even better, sometimes you become so immersed in a particular fictional world, you don’t ever want to leave. That’s what happened to me when I listened to A Man Called Ove, the most recent pick from my new book club (and a huge step up from our first pick!!). Not only did I feel like I was right in Ove’s Swedish neighborhood, experiencing everything that happened in the book, but it made me want to know these people, to have them be a part of my actual life. I wanted […]

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4/22/2017 | Post by

A Man Called Ove makes me read an actual book.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

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After finishing several audiobooks, I had gotten used to “reading” while accomplishing some other task. So it took several weeks for me to actually read this book, which was a Christmas gift. How time-consuming to SIT DOWN and READ an ACTUAL book…Could I truly devote ALL my attention to it? I was afraid I wouldn’t get the kitchen cleaned or my email checked or God knows what else if I just READ the book myself. Oh no, is this what kids these days think about books? *high fives myself for bridging a generational gap* Speaking of kids these days, Ove […]

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2/1/2017 | Post by

I liked this book way more than I thought I would.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

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I’m such a sucker. Two books in a row have turned me into a dripping snot monster. Well, to be fair, I think I cried harder at this one than I otherwise would have because I’d cried so hard at Code Name Verity the day before. I was all prepped to be emotional; all my systems were primed. At least this was a happy cry. Way better than that ‘OH MY GOD THIS IS SO SAD MY HEART IS DYING’ crying I did on that other book. This was a book club pick I wouldn’t have read on my own, […]

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10/12/2016 | Post by


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