Cannonball Read 16

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Connections and Questions

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

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Best for: People who like a mystery that doesn’t involve figuring out who killed someone; people who are interested in exploring people beyond what they choose to share. In a nutshell: Someone has robbed a bank, run, and is now holding hostage a group of folks at an apartment viewing. Worth quoting: “If the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, that’s probably because it’s full of shit.” “Most people never become individuals to us. They remain people.” Why I chose it: […]

Stockholm Syndrome

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

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A hapless robber tries to stick up a cashless bank (which is apparently very much a thing in Sweden) and winds up holding eight people hostage at a nearby apartment viewing instead. In parallel narratives, Backman tracks both the robber’s pathetic attempt to corral the hostages, and the similarly ineffective police investigation conducted in the aftermath of the incident. The hostages, remarkably, are equally uncooperative in both scenarios. They consist of an older married couple who’ve taken to buying and flipping properties in their retirement, […]

Catching Up On Some Reviews

Still Life by Louise Penny

With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

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Still Life by Louise Penny Back when I was hoping to complete a Cannonball Bingo, Still Life was my choice for the North America square. The first novel in Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache mystery series, it’s set in the little town of Three Pines in Canada and follows the search for the murderer of 76-year-old Jane Neal. I don’t often read mysteries, so I was surprised at how Penny approached the mystery. We spend a lot of time with other characters in the town […]

CBR15 Bingo: Europe (triple Bingo)

Folk med ångest (Anxious People) by Fredrik Backman

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#CBR15 Passport Challenge: Books from different countries (set in and written by a Swedish author, read in Swedish) CBR15 Bingo: Europe (see description for Passport Challenge) Official book description (translated by me): Folk med ångest (literally translated as People with anxiety, official English title Anxious People) is an unusually messy comedy about a hostage drama during an apartment showing, where a failed bank robber locks themselves in with an overly enthusiastic realtor, two bitter IKEA-addicts, a mean multimillionaire, a sad lady, a very pregnant woman, […]

Who Knew Taking Hostages Could be Heartwarming

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

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Anxious People is the best book I’ve read in a long time.  It managed both to make me laugh out loud and start to cry.  Taking place on the eve of New Year’s Eve in a small town in Sweden, it brings together a fairly large cast without losing site of any of them, and making their voices and stories distinct. A burglar attempts to rob a cashless bank for a pittance, then runs away only to stumble into the open house of an apartment […]

“No one tells you before you procreate that the hardest thing about being a good parent is that you never feel like one.”

The Winners by Fredrik Backman

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I have been reading Fredrik Backman since A Man Called Ove. I mean reading everything he has ever written (including the novellas).  So, when a friend suggested we go see him at a local library, I jumped at the chance. I have seen lots of author presentations (I call myself a bit of an author groupie), and his was one of the best. He was wonderful: well spoken, polite, humble, insightful, smart, and most of all, very funny. The event included a signed book, so I […]



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