Cannonball Read 15

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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 […]

The writing hasn’t changed, but I think I have

The Winners by Fredrik Backman

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Look, I still really like Backman’s writing, as I’ve noted in my reviews of the previous books. But if I had to summarize my feelings on this book, it’s “schtick has run its course.” spoilers for the previous two installments! Here we return once more to Beartown and Hed, two towns alike in dignity in fair northern Sweden where we lay our scene. We’ve already had ancient grudge break and new mutiny, and blood has already been spilt over the hockeyball that seems to define […]

Double header re-read in advance of another trilogy finale

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

Us Against You by Fredrik Backman

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I never wrote a review for this one because it was before my quest to review everything I’ve read, but I really wish I had because my view on these books has changed pretty dramatically in the three and a half years it’s been since I first picked these up on the recommendation of my good friend and voracious bibliophile Aileen. Things I still think are true: Backman is one of my favorite authors writing today, for all that I’ve only read his works in […]

A little town in a big forest.

The Winners by Fredrik Backman

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CBR14BINGO: Cold square (BINGO! Snake to Bodies) (Takes place in Sweden. Lots of ice talk.) When a book moves you like this one, the review is so hard to write. I’m afraid that I’m gonna end up with at least 250 words that amount to “GAH! This book!” I know this because that’s what I kept saying out loud as I read it. I had to put the book down and wipe my eyes when my tears made it too blurry to read. Many, many times. I […]

“People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was color. All the color he had.”

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

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Cannonball Read Bingo Square: Cold I”m late to the game on this 2012 book about Ove, who I would dub the King of all Curmudgeons. Picking this book for the “cold” bingo square was a no-brainer because his character first presents as the chilliest of all cold characters, with rarely a kind word to say about anyone. I personally would crown Ove as the King of all Curmudgeons. But of course, he would bristle at the honorific, belittling the idea that a) someone would pay […]



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