Have You Read This One?

I hope everything is okay with you! I am glad we found our Skype window the other day, lets talk again soon!

Okay, I am not sure where to start so I will just jump right in.

I think you might have read almost all the books I sent you a few month back? Sounds like a huge amount, but it was like five, right? I promised I would not send you any more books in the near future so I guess a list of book recommendations will have to do. Or this post is mainly going to be books written by some of the authors I sent you.

None of us are the biggest fans of Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic series, but I believe you (like me) enjoyed The Undomestic Goddess. So, what other books of her’s is worth reading?  The first book I read by Sophie Kinsella was Can You Keep a Secret?. I think I saw this book in one  of my cousins bookshelves and lent it from the library. The main character Emma is on a plane and is absolutely sure that the plane is about to crash so she spills all her secrets to the stranger next to her. The plane does not crash and he turns out to be her company’s next CEO (who now knows all her secrets). After that, I believe I read Twenties Girl. (I found an English copy in a second hand store a while ago and bought it to re-read.) The spirit of the main character Laura’s great-aunt turns up and will not leave Laura alone until she finds her lost necklace. Then there is Remember Me?. I really liked it at the time, but I guess I will have to re-read it to give you an update on what I think now. Here we meet Lexie who wakes up and cannot remember the last three years (she is, among other things, married) Then we have I’ve Got Your Number. I remember it not being as good as the others, but still a good read. I have also read Sophie Kinsella’s Wedding Night, but you can just skip that one. Sophie Kinsella is a pseudonym for Madeleine Wickham. I have not tried to read any of the books under her real name, and from what I have heard others say, they are not as good. My favourite Kinsella? I think it has to be The Undomestic Goddess.

Next up, I sent you The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson. I read it myself in Swedish in the beginning of January this year, I think. I started writing a review of it in English but haven’t gotten around posting it yet. We will just have to wait and see if it turns up here. After I had read it, I read a few (non-Swedish) reviews of it and some people were like “really Sweden, this is the best you can come up with?” and “this is so unrealistic, this is not how the second world war happened”. Eh, no, it was not supposed to be realistic and super accurate. I really like his writing, how he tells the story and the voice of Alan. I have not yet read anything else by Jonas Jonasson. I have his next book The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden standing in my shelf to be read, I think it was my grandmother gave it to me for my birthday a couple of years ago, but I wanted to read about Alan first. I have not really looked into what it is about. The English title did not just go with the Swedish title this time but made up their own to, I guess, go with the same theme and tell us who it is about. The Swedish title Analfabeten som kunde räkna would be translated into The analphabetic who could count. So, I guess it is really a combination of the two. He has also written Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All. I have not heard much of this, except for one of my choir members who thought it to be hilarious.

Then there is A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. I do not think that I have met anyone who does not like it. I am a little amazed by that so many worldwide like is at much as we Swedes do. I think everyone knows someone who could be Ove. So, I have only read this one and Saker min son behöver veta om världen, which has not been translated (yet?). The second title would be translated into something like Things my son needs to know about the world. Fredrik Backman writes a blog in Swedish, and this book is very much like his blog posts (mostly funny). But, to the books that have been translated; My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, Britt-Marie Was Here and a short story just recently translated; And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer. I think the short story is next on my to-read list of these, and after that the Grandmother-one.

It feels like this could turn out to become a really long post (I guess it already is) so I think I will stop here for now and we will see what comes up next.

Take care,

Yrsa