Tag: Read

Throwback Thursday: A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

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ThrowbackThursday

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by Renee at It’s Book Talk. It’s designed as an opportunity to share old favourites as well as books that we’ve finally got around to reading that were published over a year ago. If you decide to take part, please link back to It’s Book Talk.

There are some books I feel as if I must be the last person in the world to read.  This week’s book – A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman – is a case in point. Published in 2012, it was an international best-seller.  My impetus for reading it now is that it forms part of my From Page to Screen reading challenge. The Swedish adaptation* of the book was shown recently at my local independent cinema, Reading Film Theatre.  I shall be reviewing the film adaptation and comparing the two in a separate post.

*A Hollywood version produced by and starring Tom Hanks has recently been announced

AManCalledOveAbout the Book

A grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door. Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbour from hell, but must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time? Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heart-warming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundations.

Format: ebook (304 pp.)            Publisher: Sceptre
Published: 3rd July 2014             Genre: Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com ǀ Barnes & Noble
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find A Man Called Ove on Goodreads

My Review

I’m always a little anxious when I start reading a much-lauded, and more importantly, a much loved book.  In fact, I’m aware many people cite A Man Called Ove as one of their favourite books ever. While I liked a lot about A Man Called Ove – I found parts of it moving, funny and quirky – I can’t say I loved it wholeheartedly. I’m going to start by talking about the elements I did really like and then move on to explain my reservations.

I loved the strange and beautiful love story of Ove and Sonja – ‘He was a man of black and white. And she was colour. All the colour he had.’  I thought the picture we get of Ove through Sonja’s love for him and his devotion to her, is the most moving part of the book.  Sonja could see beneath the exterior of the shy rather awkward young man she met on a train to the truthful, loyal, heroic and resilient person beneath. If other words, she could see the colour in Ove that others couldn’t. Despite the contrasts between them, they fitted together like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle to produce a complete picture.

There are beautiful lines, such as:
‘But if anyone had asked, he would have told them that he had never lived before he met her.’
‘He knew better to speak ill of what she loved; after all, he understood very keenly how it was to receive her love when no one else could understand why he was worthy of it.’

Really, I simply loved Sonja and who wouldn’t? She loves books, she loves to laugh, she’s a teacher, she fights for her pupils and inspires them to achieve more than they think they can. In a way, Ove is her most ambitious project and the saddest aspect of the book is that we never get to see what she could have achieved.

So what were the aspects I was less enthusiastic about? Well, I got a little bored with all the Saab references and jokes. Perhaps you have to be Swedish or a car owner (and I’m neither) to appreciate them. And although the book was really funny in parts, at times I found the humour rather predictable and the visual and verbal punch lines easy to see coming.

However, my main reservation was about the development of the character of Ove himself. The author didn’t completely convince me how the socially awkward but essentially decent and likeable young man that Sonja fell in love with became the anti-social, sexist curmudgeon that we meet at the beginning of the book. I appreciate we learn about tragic events in Ove’s life but they didn’t seem to me to sufficiently explain such a change in his character.

Having said this, the author is a skilful writer and although one may not like Ove – and you definitely wouldn’t want to have him as a neighbour – the author makes you care about him. And, in the end, any imperfections in the portrayal of Ove’s character were redeemed for me by the portrait painted of Sonja and their emotional story. That love story, for me, is the beautiful heart of the book.

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FredrikBackmanAbout the Author

Fredrik Backman is a well-known Swedish blogger and columnist. His debut novel’s protagonist was born on his blog, where over 1,000 readers voted for Backman to write a novel about Ove. In 2011, he became an overnight success when one of his blog entries, ‘Personal message to stressed blond woman in Volkswagen’, about reckless driving and parental love, became the most linked entry on Facebook ever, with 60,000 shares.

Connect with Fredrik

Website ǀ Twitter ǀ Goodreads

 

WWW Wednesday – 4th October ’17

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WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too? Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

Currently reading

TremarnockSummerTremarnock Summer by Emma Burstall (ebook, review copy courtesy of Head of Zeus)

Bramble Challoner has had a very normal upbringing. She lives in a semi in the suburbs of London with her parents and works at the call centre down the road. She still goes out with the boy she met at school. At weekends they stay in and watch films on the telly and sometimes hold hands. Bramble is dying for an adventure. So when her very grand grandfather, Lord Penrose, dies, leaving his huge, rambling house in Cornwall to her, Bramble packs her bags immediately, dragging along her best friend Katie. The sleepy village of Tremarnock had better be ready for its newest residents…

TheBookofForgottenAuthorsThe Book of Forgotten Authors by Christopher Fowler (ARC courtesy of riverrun books)

Absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder. It makes people think you’re dead. So begins Christopher Fowler’s foray into the back catalogues and back stories of 99 authors who, once hugely popular, have all but disappeared from shelves. We are fondly introduced to each potential rediscovery: from lost Victorian voices to the twentieth century writers who could well become the next John Williams, Hans Fallada or Lionel Davidson. Whether male or female, flash-in-the-pan or prolific, mega-seller or prize-winner, no author, it seems, can ever be fully immune from the fate of being forgotten. These 99 journeys are punctuated by 12 short essays about faded once-favourites: including the now-vanished novels Walt Disney brought to the screen, the contemporary rivals of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie who did not stand the test of time, and the women who introduced psychological suspense many decades before it conquered the world. This is a book about books and their authors. It is for book lovers, and is written by one who could not be a more enthusiastic, enlightening and entertaining guide.

Recently finished (click on title to read my review)

MariaintheMoonMaria in the Moon by Louise Beech (ebook, review copy courtesy of Orenda Books)

‘Long ago my beloved Nanny Eve chose my name. Then one day she stopped calling me it. I try now to remember why, but I just can’t.’  Thirty-one-year-old Catherine Hope has a great memory. But she can’t remember everything. She can’t remember her ninth year. She can’t remember when her insomnia started. And she can’t remember why everyone stopped calling her Catherine-Maria. With a promiscuous past, and licking her wounds after a painful breakup, Catherine wonders why she resists anything approaching real love. But when she loses her home to the deluge of 2007 and volunteers at Flood Crisis, a devastating memory emerges … and changes everything. Dark, poignant and deeply moving, Maria in the Moon is an examination of the nature of memory and truth, and the defences we build to protect ourselves, when we can no longer hide…

WomanEntersLeftWoman Enters Left by Jessica Brockmole (ebook, review copy courtesy of HF Virtual Book Tours)

In the 1950s, movie star Louise Wilde is caught between an unfulfilling acting career and a shaky marriage when she receives an out-of-the-blue phone call: she has inherited the estate of Florence “Florrie” Daniels, a Hollywood screenwriter she barely recalls meeting. Among Florrie’s possessions are several unproduced screenplays, personal journals, and—inexplicably—old photographs of Louise’s mother, Ethel. On an impulse, Louise leaves a film shoot in Las Vegas and sets off for her father’s house on the East Coast, hoping for answers about the curious inheritance and, perhaps, about her own troubled marriage.  Nearly thirty years earlier, Florrie takes off on an adventure of her own, driving her Model T westward from New Jersey in pursuit of broader horizons. She has the promise of a Hollywood job and, in the passenger seat, Ethel, her best friend since childhood. Florrie will do anything for Ethel, who is desperate to reach Nevada in time to reconcile with her husband and reunite with her daughter. Ethel fears the loss of her marriage; Florrie, with long-held secrets confided only in her journal, fears its survival. In parallel tales, the three women—Louise, Florrie, Ethel—discover that not all journeys follow a map. As they rediscover their carefree selves on the road, they learn that sometimes the paths we follow are shaped more by our travelling companions than by our destinations.

What Cathy (will) Read Next

TheCrowsofBearaThe Crows of Beara by Julie Christine Johnson (ebook, review copy courtesy of Sage’s Blog Tours)

When Annie Crowe travels from Seattle to a small Irish village to promote a new copper mine, her public relations career is hanging in the balance. Struggling to overcome her troubled past and a failing marriage, Annie is eager for a chance to rebuild her life. Yet when she arrives on the remote Beara Peninsula, Annie learns that the mine would encroach on the nesting ground of an endangered bird, the Red-billed Chough, and many in the community are fiercely protective of this wild place. Among them is Daniel Savage, a local artist battling demons of his own, who has been recruited to help block the mine. Despite their differences, Annie and Daniel find themselves drawn toward each other, and, inexplicably, they begin to hear the same voice – a strange, distant whisper of Gaelic, like sorrow blowing in the wind. Guided by ancient mythology and challenged by modern problems, Annie must confront the half-truths she has been sent to spread and the lies she has been telling herself. Most of all, she must open her heart to the healing power of this rugged land and its people.

TheQuestfortheCrownofThornsThe Quest for the Crown of Thorns by Cynthia Ripley Miller (ebook, review copy courtesy of HF Virtual Book Tours)

AD 454. Three years after the Roman victory over Attila the Hun at Catalaunum, Arria Felix and Garic the Frank are married and enjoying life on Garic’s farm in northern Gaul (France). Their happy life is interrupted, when a cryptic message arrives from Rome, calling Arria home to her father, the esteemed Senator Felix. At Arria’s insistence, but against Garic’s better judgment, they leave at once.  Upon their arrival at Villa Solis, they are confronted with a brutal murder and the dangerous mission that awaits them. The fate of a profound and sacred object – Christ’s Crown of Thorns – rests in their hands. They must carry the holy relic to the safety of Constantinople, away from a corrupt emperor and old enemies determined to steal it for their own gain. But an even greater force arises to derail their quest–a secret cult willing to commit any atrocity to capture the Crown of Thorns. And all the while, the gruesome murder and the conspiracy behind it haunt Arria’s thoughts.

NewBoyNew Boy by Tracy Chevalier (ebook, NetGalley)

Arriving at his fifth school in as many years, a diplomat’s son, Osei Kokote, knows he needs an ally if he is to survive his first day so he’s lucky to hit it off with Dee, the most popular girl in school. But one student can’t stand to witness this budding relationship: Ian decides to destroy the friendship between the black boy and the golden girl. By the end of the day, the school and its key players – teachers and pupils alike – will never be the same again. The tragedy of Othello is transposed to a 1970’s suburban Washington schoolyard, where kids fall in and out of love with each other before lunchtime, and practice a casual racism picked up from their parents and teachers. Peeking over the shoulders of four 11 year olds Osei, Dee, Ian, and his reluctant girlfriend Mimi, Tracy Chevalier’s powerful drama of friends torn apart by jealousy, bullying and betrayal will leave you reeling.