November Bookclub

2022 has been a great reading year for me. Thanks to so many Christian books now being available in audio format, I have far exceeded my best recorded number of books read in any year. I’m at 114 completed reads with about seven weeks left in the year.

Which brings me to the reason for this post.

Recently one of my writer groups decided to form a bookclub. One rule: we will never read one of the books by a member of said group. The book chosen for November was A Man Called Ove (pronounced OO-vah). I’ve heard people talking about this book for a long time (maybe seven years?). It was on my Want to Read shelf in Goodreads. Well, I am now wondering what took me so long to get around to reading it.

Here’s my Goodreads review. I gave it 5🌟.

Audiobook (narrated by J.K. Simmons):
I’ve heard about this novel for years. It’s been in my Want To Read list on Goodreads since I don’t know when. Why did it take me so long to read it? I laughed and laughed my way through the novel until almost the end. Then I cried and cried, sometimes while laughing at the same time. And J.K. Simmons does a great job of narrating the audiobook. Perfect.

I plan to watch the Swedish movie based on the novel, and I will also see the Tom Hanks movie (A Man Called Otto) when it comes out because I can so see Hanks playing this old curmudgeon with a heart.

Note: There is crude language in the book that some readers might find offensive. Be advised.

Let me add in this blog post: Read this book with your heart and not with your head. Don’t judge Ove, especially not right away. Give him time.

Ove is a curmudgeon, and sometimes I read (heard) things I’ve said coming out of his mouth. Thus, I guess I’ve become a curmudgeon, too. That made me laugh. That cat. Oh, I loved that cat. It made me laugh. The seven-year-old and the three-year-old. I laughed and cried. Sonja. Oh, what a woman. Cried. The pregnant Parvaneh. Also, what a woman. Laughed and cried.

Today, I am playing hooky from writing for a couple of hours so I can watch the Swedish movie based on the book. It isn’t dubbed, only sub-titled. It’s free for Prime members.

If you don’t liked foreign films where you must read to understand, then be advised that the Tom Hanks movie, A Man Called Otto (link is to the movie trailer), is coming out on Christmas Day (limited release), and everywhere in theaters (and streaming, it appears) in mid-January. My guess is that Tom Hanks will embody Ove/Otto to a tee.

I’ll be reading more of Fredrik Backman’s books, but I won’t do it right away. I want this book to nestle in my heart a little longer.

~robin