Non-fiction two-fer: Infectious diseases and life lessons

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

My two most recent audiobooks were both non-fiction — very unusual for me! — and both were terrific. (I should note that in terms of subject matter, tone, and genre, these books are nothing alike… but they happen to be the two short audiobooks I listened to most recently, so why not combine them into one two-fer review post?)

Here are my quick thoughts on each:

Title: Everything Is Tuberculosis
Author: John Green
Narrator: John Green
Publisher: Crash Course Books
Publication date: March 18, 2025
Print length: 208 pages
Audio length: 5 hours 35 minutes
Genre: Non-fiction / science
Source: Library
Rating:

Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is seen as a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.

In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, preventable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing over a million people every year.

In Everything Is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world—and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.

Everything Is Tuberculosis is an informative, eye-opening look at tuberculosis, with a narrative style that’s personal, accessible, and highly engaging.

John Green is both the author and narrator, and his sense of urgency and deep personal commitment are evident throughout the listening experience. The author initially become drawn to the topic of tuberculosis while visiting a hospital in Sierra Leone and meeting a young patient there. As he describes it, he quickly became obsessed with learning more about the disease, to the point that for him, as his wife puts it, “everything is tuberculosis”.

The facts and figures are startling. I had no idea that tuberculosis is still the #1 killer amongst diseases in this day and age, with over one million people continuing to die from tuberculosis each year. This is especially heartbreaking in light of the fact that tuberculosis is curable — but as the author repeats throughout the book:

… the cure is where the disease is not, and the disease is where the cure is not.

Everything Is Tuberculosis focuses on the public health issues surrounding tuberculosis, especially the systems of scarcity, drug availability, stigmatization, and social constructs that that prevent people most in need from accessing life-saving medicines that can absolutely cure their illnesses, if only they could get them.

This is an important book, easy to digest yet providing endless food for thought.

A reading note: I do wish I’d had access to a print or e-book version as well (both of which have huge wait lists at the library). I’d like to be able to go back and revisit certain facts, incidents, and pieces of the history. My recommendation for fullest audio appreciation would be to pair listening with a print edition.

Title: Things My Son Needs to Know about the World
Author: Fredrik Backman
Narrator: Santino Fontana
Publisher: Atria
Publication date: May 7, 2019
Print length: 208 pages
Audio length: 3 hours 10 minutes
Genre: Non-fiction / humor
Source: Library
Rating:

Things My Son Needs to Know About the World collects the personal dispatches from the front lines of one of the most daunting experiences any man can experience: fatherhood.

As he conveys his profound awe at experiencing all the “firsts” that fill him with wonder and catch him completely unprepared, Fredrik Backman doesn’t shy away from revealing his own false steps and fatherly flaws, tackling issues both great and small, from masculinity and mid-life crises to practical jokes and poop.

In between the sleep-deprived lows and wonderful highs, Backman takes a step back to share the true story of falling in love with a woman who is his complete opposite, and learning to live a life that revolves around the people you care about unconditionally. Alternating between humorous side notes and longer essays offering his son advice as he grows up and ventures out into the world, Backman relays the big and small lessons in life, including:

-How to find the team you belong to
-Why airports explain everything about religion and war
-The reason starting a band is crucial to cultivating and keeping friendships
-How to beat Monkey Island 3
-Why, sometimes, a dad might hold onto his son’s hand just a little too tight.

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove shares an irresistible and moving collection of heartfelt, fictional, humorous essays about fatherhood, providing his newborn son with the perspective and tools he’ll need to make his way in the world.

I’ve read many of Fredrik Backman’s novels, so I already know that I enjoy his humor, his wordplay, and his quirkiness. Naturally, once I heard about Things My Son Needs to Know about the World, I simply had to give it a try. The short version of my review? This book is a delight.

Short, sweet, and filled with love, Things My Son Needs to Know about the World contains a father’s words of wisdom — about everything from video games to Ikea to the depths of love for a spouse and a child — written by the author with his toddler son as the intended future audience. So yes, he talks quite a lot about diapers and lack of sleep and how the preschool teachers don’t always appreciate his sense of humor… but through all the funny bits (and there are plenty), there’s also true emotion and powerful doses of reality and perspective.

But, mainly, oodles of fun. Parts of this book are quite moving, and nearly all of it is laugh-out-loud funny. I think parents of any age children would find something to connect with here.

The audiobook version, narrated by Santino Fontana, is a treat to listen to, and goes by very quickly.

If you need a break from stressful days and want to laugh (and maybe even cry) a little (or a lot), definitely check out Things My Son Needs to Know about the World!

Save

Two very different reading/listening experiences… both highly recommended!Save

Save

14Nov2025

Audiobook Review: Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Britt-Marie Was Here
Author: Fredrik Backman
Narrator: Joan Walker
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication date: 2016
Print length: 324 pages
Audio length: 9 hours 18 minutes
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Library
Rating:

From the best-selling author of the “charming debut” (People) A Man Called Ove and My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, a heartwarming and hilarious story of a reluctant outsider who transforms a tiny village and a woman who finds love and second chances in the unlikeliest of places.

Britt-Marie can’t stand mess. She eats dinner at precisely the right time and starts her day at six in the morning because only lunatics wake up later than that. And she is not passive-aggressive. Not in the least. It’s just that sometimes people interpret her helpful suggestions as criticisms, which is certainly not her intention.

But at 63, Britt-Marie has had enough. She finally walks out on her loveless 40-year marriage and finds a job in the only place she can: Borg, a small, derelict town devastated by the financial crisis. For the fastidious Britt-Marie, this new world of noisy children, muddy floors, and a roommate who is a rat (literally) is a hard adjustment.

As for the citizens of Borg, with everything that they know crumbling around them, the only thing that they have left to hold on to is something Britt-Marie absolutely loathes: their love of soccer. When the village’s youth team becomes desperate for a coach, they set their sights on her. She’s the least likely candidate, but their need is obvious, and there is no one else to do it.

Thus begins a beautiful and unlikely partnership. In her new role as reluctant mentor to these lost young boys and girls, Britt-Marie soon finds herself becoming increasingly vital to the community. And, even more surprisingly, she is the object of romantic desire for a friendly and handsome local policeman named Sven. In this world of oddballs and misfits, can Britt-Marie finally find a place where she belongs?

Zany and full of heart, Britt-Marie Was Here is a novel about love and second chances and about the unexpected friendships we make that teach us who we really are and the things we are capable of doing.

After finishing Fredrik Backman’s most recent book, My Friends — a true masterpiece — I decided to go back and read the remaining couple of his books that I’d somehow missed. But now that I’ve read Britt-Marie Was Here, I realize that his earlier books may not work for me quite as well as the more recent ones.

In Britt-Marie Was Here, we meet the prickly, socially awkward Britt-Marie who, after 40 years of marriage, leaves her husband and decides to start a life of her own. She’s spent all these year catering to her husband and keeping their home spotless, and has simply taken his word for it when he tells her that she’s not good with people. Now, she’s determined to find her own path, and starts by hounding the poor woman at the unemployment office until she’s finally offered the only available position — acting as caretaker for an abandoned community center slated for closure shortly, in the forgotten, run-down town of Borg.

Borg is miles from nowhere, and seems to mainly consist of a pizzeria that’s also the local grocery store, post office, and car repair shop. The recreation center is just next door, and in just as desperate need of cleaning as the pizzeria, so Britt-Marie gets to work. She’s incredibly awkward and rubs the locals the wrong way right from the start — and yet, she’s not fazed when the curious local kids show up to check her out. Somehow, almost against her will, she gets involved, and soon, she’s formed abrasive yet fond relationships with the adults of Borg while also getting roped into acting as the kids’ soccer coach.

If you like your stories quirky and heart-warming, then there’s a lot you’ll enjoy about Britt-Marie Was Here. Backman’s storytelling is always a delight, and his wordplay and descriptions are just as clever as we’d expect. I especially love how this author captures so much depth about life and emotions in seemingly simple sentences:

She has not run down the stairs like this since she was a teenager, when your heart reaches the front door before your feet.

However… Plotwise, Britt-Marie Was Here feels a little bland. I’ve read plenty of books already about outsiders finding connection and community in a peculiar small town, so this book didn’t especially stand out for me. What’s more, I found the timeline hard to believe: Britt-Marie spends three weeks in Borg, and somehow manages to change everyone’s lives for the better, create new hope for the children and their soccer team, and encourage the townsfolk to become their best selves. In three weeks? As I said, perhaps I’ve just read too many of these outsiders-transform-a-community stories, but I just wasn’t buying it.

On top of my issues with the story, I really struggled with the audiobook narration. The narrator’s delivery was a challenge for me, especially the rhythm and tone of her speaking voice. Something about it just didn’t click, and I often found myself puzzling over what I’d just heard or having to go back and repeat sections — or double-check them against the printed edition.

This is a cute story, and there are some moments I truly enjoyed, but between the narration and the sense of having read too many similar stories already, Britt-Marie Was Here was only a so-so audiobook experience for me.

I do think the author’s style and subject matter have developed spectacularly over the years, and his later books feel much deeper to me. I believe I have just one more of his early novels, and possibly a few shorter pieces, left to read, but after Britt-Marie, I’ll probably hold off for a while before delving further into his backlist.

Purchase links: Amazon – Audible – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm
Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.

Save

18Oct2025

Audiobook Review: My Friends by Fredrik Backman

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: My Friends
Author: Fredrik Backman
Narrator: Marin Ireland
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication date: May 6, 2025
Print length: 436 pages
Audio length: 13 hours, 22 minutes
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

#1 New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a complete stranger’s life twenty-five years later.

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more nervous she becomes about what she’ll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art.

This will be a hard review to write… because My Friends is a beautiful, powerful book, and other than saying that I loved it, what else can I say?

This story about the transformative power of friendship and art is startling, funny, and emotional, filled with Fredrik Backman’s unique sense of connection and facility with words. The novel has a voice of its own that immerses the reader right from the start — and while it’s not always clear where the story is going, there’s immense pleasure in the journey.

My Friends has a contemporary setting as a frame, in which 17-year-old Louisa, one day away from the 18th birthday that will set her free from the foster system and also turn her out into the world with no resources or support, breaks into an art gallery to view a painting. It’s not just any painting: The One of the Sea by artist C. Jat is a glorious work depicting (you guessed it) the sea. It’s a hot commodity — the first painting by an artist whose works sell for millions, highly coveted by the rich auction crowd who think it’ll look just fabulous in their summer homes (maybe with a different color frame to go with their decor). But when Louisa sees the painting, she knows it’s really a painting about people — the three small figures, practically hidden, sitting together mid-laugh on a pier.

Through a series of action-filled scenes, Louisa ends up with Ted as a companion and quasi-guardian. Ted, it turns out, is a childhood friend of the artist and also one of the children on the pier in the painting. For reasons I won’t get into, Ted and Louisa end up embarking on a lengthy train journey together, during which their initial distrust and animosity toward one another turns into a nuanced, caring dynamic, as Ted reveals to Louisa what happened during the summer of the painting.

The heart of My Friends is the story from 25 years earlier that Ted tells to Louisa, about growing up in a hard, impoverished harbor town, where friendship is the key to surviving terrible home lives. Ted and his friends are poor, neglected, and bullied… but when they’re together, life could not be better. The fateful summer of the painting, as young teens, they find joy every day they’re together, despite the tragedies unfolding elsewhere in their lives.

As Ted and Louisa travel further together, he reveals the story bit by bit, in a storytelling approach that circles around certain events, hints at others, and then loops back for more. The more Ted shares, the more invested Louisa becomes, until her own emotions become inextricably tied to the events of Ted and his friends’ past.

Fredrik Backman’s writing here is superb. The way the two timelines weave together is magical. Time loops around the two narrative threads, bringing us back to summer days of pranks and swimming and freedom, while never letting us forget that those idyllic days had dark sides and life-long consequences. Backman is also a master at showing the impact of chance encounters — the people who happen to cross paths with someone at a critical moment, and end up having the power to change lives.

There’s such a brilliant mix of light and dark in this book. The writing is funny, and the author’s wordplay always delights.

“WAIT!” Ted bellows desperately at the lights, but that’s about as effective as throwing marshmallows at a whale and thinking it will change direction.

Certain comparisons and phrasing may seem absurd, but through repetition and a deep sense of fun, the writing makes this book sing in even small moments.

Joar couldn’t have looked more disappointed if Santa Claus had turned out to be a dentist.

I don’t want to say much about where the story goes, the events that are revealed, or how the various characters and situations connect to one another. This is a story best appreciated by letting it unfold around you. I will say that I felt completely drawn in by the storytelling, on edge awaiting an anticipated tragedy at one moment, and laughing out loud at outrageous antics another.

Audiobook narrator Marin Ireland, who has narrated several of the author’s books, once again is a marvel. She excels at providing distinct voices for the various characters, and does a terrific job with the dialogue, conveying everything from teen-age bluster to adult weariness and everything in between with utter conviction.

I’ll be thinking about My Friends for a long time to come, and can’t recommend it highly enough. This book should not be missed!

I’ve read several of the author’s books, but have a few earlier ones still to catch up on. After my positive experience with My Friends, I’m eager to dig in and catch up on what I’ve missed. Books I’ve read:

On my to-read list:

The Winners
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry
Britt-Marie Was Here

Have you read any of these three? Is there one you’d particularly recommend?

Purchase links: Amaz o n – Audible audiobook – Bookshop.org – Libro.fm
Disclaimer: When you make a purchase through one of these affiliate links, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.

21Nov2024

Short fiction: The Answer is No by Fredrik Backman

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Answer is No
Author: Fredrik Backman
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Publication date: December 1, 2024
Length: 68 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

In a hilarious short story from New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman, the absurdities of modern life cause one man’s solitary world to spin suddenly, and comically, out of control.

Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone?

Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.

Told in Fredrik Backman’s singular witty style with sharply drawn characters and relatable antics, The Answer Is No is a laugh-out-loud portrait of a man struggling to keep to himself in a world that won’t leave him alone.

A new story from Fredrik Backman is practically guaranteed to be a joy to read… so does The Answer is No succeed? The answer is yes!

This funny, quirky tale is about a man who wants the world to leave him alone, but the world doesn’t seem to get the message. He’s perfectly happy, until the frying pan incident spirals out of control, bringing visitor after visitor to his door.

It’s a cute, clever story with a simple plot. What makes it a gem is Backman’s writing, of course. Here are a few choice snippets:

Lucas is happy. This is a very provoking thing to the world. Because people aren’t supposed to be happy, they’re only supposed to want to be happy, because how otherwise are you supposed to be able to sell things to them?

Just to be clear: It’s not that Lucas hates other people. He just really enjoys being where other people aren’t. He works well in groups as long as it’s groups of fewer than two people.

“During the night someone left an old frying pan on the ground outside the recycling room!” the first head explains, as if this were the beginning of a detective novel where a dead body’s been found in a lake, and a divorced police officer from the big city who has just returned to her childhood home is drawn into an investigation that forces her to confront her past, but which may or may not also give her the chance to fall in love with a man in a flannel shirt who has a golden retriever and a charming down-to-earth view of life.

Lucas opens the door with the defeated manner of a sausage that dressed itself up as a carrot to avoid being eaten by a bear, only to be found by a rabbit.

The Answer is No is available now as a First Reads pick for Amazon Prime subscribers, and will be released officially as of December 1st. It’s a sweet, cheery treat — and obviously, a must-read for Fredrik Backman fans!

31Dec2020

Mini-reviews: Three short takes on my end-of-the-year reads (or listens)

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

It’s the morning of New Year’s Eve, I’ve finished three different books over the last day or so, and I’m not really in the mood to write detailed reviews. So, wrapping up my year of reading, here are my final three books of 2020:

_____________________________________________

Title: Us Against You (Beartown, #2)
Author: Fredrik Backman
Published: 2018
Length: 448 pages
Rating:

After everything that the citizens of Beartown have gone through, they are struck yet another blow when they hear that their beloved local hockey team will soon be disbanded. What makes it worse is the obvious satisfaction that all the former Beartown players, who now play for a rival team in Hed, take in that fact. Amidst the mounting tension between the two rivals, a surprising newcomer is handpicked to be Beartown’s new hockey coach.
Soon a new team starts to take shape around Amat, the fastest player you’ll ever see; Benji, the intense lone wolf; and Vidar, a born-to-be-bad troublemaker. But bringing this team together proves to be a challenge as old bonds are broken, new ones are formed, and the enmity with Hed grows more and more acute.
As the big match approaches, the not-so-innocent pranks and incidents between the communities pile up and their mutual contempt grows deeper. By the time the last game is finally played, a resident of Beartown will be dead, and the people of both towns will be forced to wonder if, after all they’ve been through, the game they love can ever return to something simple and innocent.

Saying I have a love/hate relationship with Fredrik Backman’s writing is a bit too strong. Maybe it’s a like/feel annoyed by relationship?

Us Against You is the sequel to Beartown, continuing the story of a small hockey-obsessed town, its politics, its personalities, and its ugly and beautiful sides. This book is really very dark and dismal for most of its length, with people suffering, fighting, and making each other miserable.

As with his other books, I found myself rolling my eyes at the abundance of declarative statements about the meaning of life. I’m glad that I read Us Against You, for the sake of seeing what happens next in these characters’ lives, but ended up speeding up to the audiobook to 1.5x when my exasperation made me want to just be done with it.

_____________________________________________

Title: The Little Book of Hygge
Author: Meik Wiking
Published: 2016
Length: 289 pages
Rating:

Denmark is often said to be the happiest country in the world. That’s down to one thing: hygge.
‘Hygge has been translated as everything from the art of creating intimacy to cosiness of the soul to taking pleasure from the presence of soothing things. My personal favourite is cocoa by candlelight…’
You know hygge when you feel it. It is when you are cuddled up on a sofa with a loved one, or sharing comfort food with your closest friends. It is those crisp blue mornings when the light through your window is just right.
Who better than Meik Wiking to be your guide to all things hygge? Meik is CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen and has spent years studying the magic of Danish life. In this beautiful, inspiring book he will help you be more hygge: from picking the right lighting and planning a dinner party through to creating an emergency hygge kit and even how to dress.

This little hardcover (borrowed from the library) is a guide to hygge — taking the Danish concept and using it to make life more peaceful, cozy, and satisfying. It’s a sweet little book — no earth-shattering revelations here, but a gentle reinforcement of some basic principles: simple is better, be cozy, keep social gatherings small and intimate, enjoy making and sharing, spend less, focus on the here and now.

I’m not sure that I got much in the way of practical steps, but it’s a good reminder to cherish the small moments and make life more comfy and cozy in little ways. And, as the author points out, the more candles, the more hygge.

_____________________________________________

Title: I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are
Author: Rachel Bloom
Published: 2020
Length: 288 pages
Rating:

In the vein of Mindy Kaling, Ali Wong, and Amy Poehler, a collection of hilarious personal essays, poems and even amusement park maps on the subjects of insecurity, fame, anxiety, and much more from the charming and wickedly funny creator of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
Rachel Bloom has felt abnormal and out of place her whole life. In this exploration of what she thinks makes her “different,” she’s come to realize that a lot of people also feel this way; even people who she otherwise thought were “normal.”
In a collection of laugh-out-loud funny essays, all told in the unique voice (sometimes singing voice) that made her a star; Rachel writes about everything from her love of Disney, OCD and depression, weirdness, and female friendships to the story of how she didn’t poop in the toilet until she was four years old; Rachel’s pieces are hilarious, smart, and infinitely relatable (except for the pooping thing).

Rachel Bloom is talented, funny, and hides absolutely nothing in this hilarious memoir about a girl who never felt “normal”. She shares poems and diary entries written by her 12-year-old self, tells about becoming a theater kid through a musical script, shares the ups and downs of her love and sex life, and manages to be really moving even while making me laugh out loud or cringe uncomfortably.

I loved Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and reading this book makes me want to go watch the series all over again (or at least watch some of the best musical moments). I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are is a must for fans!

(Okay, sure, why not share a random favorite CXG musical number? Well, if you insist…)

_____________________________________________

And that’s it! Onward to more great reading in 2021!

13Sep2020

Book Review: Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Anxious People
Author: Fredrik Backman
Publisher: Atria
Publication date: September 8, 2020
Length: 352 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

This is a poignant comedy about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined.
Viewing an apartment normally doesn’t turn into a life-or-death situation, but this particular open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes everyone in the apartment hostage. As the pressure mounts, the eight strangers slowly begin opening up to one another and reveal long-hidden truths.
As police surround the premises and television channels broadcast the hostage situation live, the tension mounts and even deeper secrets are slowly revealed. Before long, the robber must decide which is the more terrifying prospect: going out to face the police, or staying in the apartment with this group of impossible people.

In Anxious People, an ill-prepared and not very talented bank robber inadvertently seeks shelter in an apartment that’s open for viewing, turning a failed robbery into a hostage situation. For the people at the apartment viewing, being held hostage (by a robber none view as particularly dangerous) is the least of their worries.

The eight people present at the apartment all have stories to share, which we learn over the course of the book. How and why they all end up at this apartment on New Year’s Eve is complicated, and as they open up to one another, we see common threads of worry over relationships, living up to expectations, family drama, success, and finding meaning in life.

The narrative jumps around in time, taking us back 10 years to a suicide that occurred on a bridge visible from the apartment balcony, through the events of the day of the viewing, plus the police interviews that take place after the hostages are released.

We also get to know two police officers in this small Swedish town, Jim and Jack, father and son, whose professional interactions are more than a little influenced by their sometimes difficult personal relationship and their shared losses and fears. The deeper they delve into the witness statements, the more the bank robber’s motivations and actions become clear, but that doesn’t answer the fundamental question of what happened once the hostages were released.

Naturally, Jim did his best to act like he definitely had experience, seeing as dads like teaching their sons things, because the moment we can no longer do that is when they stop being our responsibility and we become theirs.

This was a quick, captivating read, and yet the level of whimsy in the storytelling is set very, very high. Your tolerance for this kind of quirky, whimsical storytelling will determine whether you’ll enjoy this book. For me, it was mixed. I’ve loved some of Fredrik Backman’s books in the past, yet there’s at least one (My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry) where I couldn’t get past the first few chapters because of the whimsy factor. It was just too much.

He presses his thumbs hard against his eyebrows, as if he hopes they’re two buttons, and if he keeps them pressed at the same time for ten seconds he’ll be able to restore life to its factory settings.

Here, the quirky storytelling leads to some very funny observations and comments, yet it’s all a bit much as a whole. The writing veers toward the precious at times, which tried my patience. A lot. I often enjoy quirky writing, but the sheer volume of it throughout Anxious People made it tough for me to enjoy.

Overall, I really liked the strange bunch of characters who find unexpected common ground through this one weird experience, an experience that teaches them all about how lives becomes mingled and how random occurrences can lead to profound change.

The truth? The truth about all this? The truth is that this was a story about many different things, but most of all about idiots. Because we’re doing the best we can, we really are. We’re trying to be grown-up and love each other and understand how the hell you’re supposed ot insert USB-leads. We’re looking for something to cling onto, something to fight for, something to look forward to. We’re doing all we can to teach out children how to swim. We have all of this in common, yet most of us remain strangers, we never know what we do to each other, how your life is affected by mine.

This wasn’t my favorite Backman book (I’d have to go with A Man Called Ove or Beartown), but I do look forward to continue reading his books, and have at least two from his backlist that I still need to read.

Anxious People is recommended for readers who enjoy character studies and quirkiness, with a smattering of deeper life lessons threaded throughout.

30Jun2020

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Releases for the Second Half of 2020

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Most Anticipated Releases of the Second Half of 2020.

I’m so excited for all of these! Since I just did a summer TBR post a couple of weeks ago that included a bunch of new releases for June through August, today I’m focusing on books coming out in fall to early winter. And the scary thing is, most of these are being released in September. How will I possibly have the time to read them all?

A Killing Frost (October Daye, #14) by Seanan McGuire (release date 9/1/2020)
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman (release date 9/8/2020)
The Ghost Tree by Christina Henry (release date 9/8/2020)
The Trials of Koli (The Book of Koli, #2) by M. R. Carey (release date 9/15/2020)
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (release date 9/15/2020)
Well Played (Well Met, #2) by Jen DeLuca (release date 9/22/2020)
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik (release date 9/29/2020)
The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher (release date 10/6/2020)
Over the Woodward Wall by A. Deborah Baker (release date 10/6/2020)
The Once & Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow (release date 10/13/2020)

Are you planning to read any of these? What new releases are you especially excited about for the 2nd half of 2019? Please share your links!

Save

14Apr2020

Audiobook Review: Beartown by Fredrik Backman

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: Beartown
Author: Fredrik Backman
Narrator: Marin Ireland
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication date: April 25, 2017
Print length: 418 pages
Audio length: 13 hours, 11 minutes
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Purchased
Rating:

People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever-encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded town. And that rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior hockey team is about to compete in the national championships, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of the town now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.
A victory would send star player Kevin onto a brilliant professional future in the NHL. It would mean everything to Amat, a scrawny fifteen-year-old treated like an outcast everywhere but on the ice. And it would justify the choice that Peter, the team’s general manager, and his wife, Kira, made to return to his hometown and raise their children in this beautiful but isolated place.
Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semifinal match is the catalyst for a violent act that leaves a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Hers is a story no one wants to believe since the truth would mean the end of the dream. Accusations are made, and like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

I have to admit, my knowledge about the plot of Beartown before reading the book was limited to basically one word: Hockey. I knew it was set in a small town, and that the town’s focus was hockey. Period. I guess I never read a synopsis, and because the book came out a few years ago and I’d heard how much people enjoyed it, I didn’t read the synopsis before starting the audiobook either.

So let’s just be clear up front. I did really enjoy this book. And at the same time, this is one of the rare occasions when I wish I’d known more ahead of time.

I’m not usually in favor of content warnings, and maybe if I’d read a synopsis ahead of time, the content wouldn’t have taken me by surprise quite so much — but I do feel like this book should have had a much more explicit content warning.

So, here’s my content warning: The “violent act” referred to in the synopsis is rape. And I did not at all realize that I was reading a book that would focus so much on rape and its aftermath. I was expecting petty grievances and sports fanatics and small-town politics, perhaps. So the content took me completely off guard. I don’t have personal trauma associated with sexual assault, but I can easily imagine how upsetting it would be for someone who’s survived such violence to be confronted by it unexpectedly in a book.

But let’s get back to the book itself. Because in many ways, Beartown is excellent!

Beartown is a small town in the forest (in Sweden) that’s seen better days… a long time ago. The town has a factory that’s going downhill, and it has an ice rink. The town is fanatical about hockey, and this year, it looks like the juniors team (15 to 17-year-old boys) has a shot at the national final. And if they win? The club’s sponsors have starry-eyed visions of a championship bringing a national hockey academy to Beartown, revitalizing the local economy and once again making the town a real place on the map.

It’s only a game. Everyone who plays it gets told that from time to time. A lot of people try to tell themselves that it’s true. But it’s complete nonsense. No one in this town would have been the same if that game hadn’t existed.

Through the novel, we get to know a huge cast of characters. There are the boys on the team, including superstar Kevin, who’s expected by everyone to turn pro. There’s Kevin’s best friend Benji, a stoner who also throws himself into every moment of the game in defense of his teammates. There’s Amat, son of the rink’s immigrant cleaning woman, finally given a shot to belong and to prove himself.

Then there are the boys’ families — some supportive, some demanding perfection while ignoring their children, some doing what they can, some doing nothing at all.

We also get to know the hockey club’s General Manager and his family; the coach of the A-team and the rising star coach of the juniors; the local pub owner, the school teacher, and so many more.

It’s only a game. It only resolves tiny, insignificant things. Such as who gets validation. Who gets listened to. It allocates power and draws boundaries and turns some people into stars and others into spectators. That’s all.

Author Fredrik Backman masterfully weaves together all of these people to paint a portrait of a community, with all its flaws and spots of ugliness as well as points of light and kindness. The small-town politics is real and cutthroat when it comes to hockey, and the toxic masculinity simply oozes off the page in various locker room and bar room scenes.

As I said, I expected a hockey story, but Beartown is so much more than that. The attack on the young girl is depicted with sensitivity, but doesn’t shy away from showing us the violence involved and the terror the girl feels.

From there, the focus becomes how the girl’s reporting of the rape triggers a huge and ugly reaction from the town, most of whom see her as a liar, a pathetic girl who got drunk, hooked up with a boy, and then got mad when he rejected her. It’s disturbing to see how far the town goes in portraying her as at fault, and how much abuse and intimidation is thrown at her, at her family, and at the few people who speak up for her.

I listened to the audiobook, and narrator Marin Ireland does a fantastic job with the dialogue and with portraying the different characters, giving them distinct sounds and personalities through her voice.

Maybe because I listened to the book, I became very aware of the author’s use of repetition as a device to drive home certain points. And perhaps in print, I wouldn’t have found it quite so annoying. Throughout the book, there are moments where we get lines of “Bang. Bang. Bang.” representing the sound of hockey pucks. Too much, after a while.

Likewise, I wasn’t crazy about the author’s habit of starting and ending chapters with declarative statements or big questions:

Why does anyone care about hockey?

A long marriage is complicated.

It’s Saturday, and everything is going to happen today.

Pride in a team can come from a variety of causes.

When you love hockey it feels like having your heart scalded.

I’m afraid I’ve focused too much on the negative, which doesn’t truly convey my feelings about this book. I do think Beartown is terrific storytelling. I was completely wrapped up in the plot and the characters — as proven by my tendency to make my walks longer and longer each day so I’d have more time to listen to the audiobook.

Some of these characters made me want to cry. I could really feel the accumulated hurts of so many of them, all the ways in which lifetime experiences add up to more than anyone could anticipate, all the ways in which spoken and unspoken words, actions allowed and forbidden, come back around with unintended and unanticipated consequences.

I was very invested in my favorite characters’ well-being, and wanted desperately to know that they’d be okay. When characters make choices that put them at risk as they stand up to do what’s right, I wanted to cheer, and at the same time, to yell at them to run far away and never turn back.

I guess that’s the sign of a great book — that despite any quibbles with the writing, the power of the characters makes you care so very, very much.

The sequel to Beartown, Us Against You, was released in 2018. And while Beartown felt complete and had a definitive ending, now that I know there’s more, I definitely have to get a copy.!

9Dec2019

A novella two-fer: Heartwarming holiday tale and nuns in space

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

It’s time for another two-fer post — a quick wrap-up of two recent reads. In this case, I borrowed two novellas from the library this week, and while they’re quite different, I definitely enjoyed them both.

The Deal of a Lifetime by Fredrik Backman: Definitely not as Christmas-y as you might think from looking at the cover. This is a sweet (veering close to the edge of overly sentimental) tale of a man having to assess what makes a life valuable, and what it means to trade a life for a life. The prose is clear and simply stated, and there are illustrations throughout that emphasize the loveliness of the small moments that make a life. This is a quick read, and the little hardcover I borrowed from the library would make a really nice gift for fans of the author.

Length: 65 pages
Published: 2017
Rating:

Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather: This science fiction novella is set on board a living ship, the space-voyaging convent Our Lady of Impossible Constellations. The nuns on the ship travel to the outer reaches of the four systems, ministering to the sick and performing rites and rituals, largely independent of government and church politics. I was fascinated by the concept of the ship as a living creature — this novella would be worth reading just for the descriptions of the ship’s biology! The lives of the sisters hold more secrets than is immediately apparent, and their interactions with one isolated colony planet thrust them into the middle of an interstellar power play that is likely to result in devastation.

I really enjoyed the plot of Sisters of the Vast Black. I think I would have liked it even more as a full-length novel. Events seem somewhat rushed in this shorter form, and likewise, I would have preferred a little more time to get to know the characters as individuals. Still, despite these minor quibbles, I heartily recommend this sci-fi adventure. Nuns in space!! Really, what more do you need to know?

Length: 176
Published: 2019
Rating:

Two quick 4-star reads for the end-of-the-year rush! Check ’em out.

21Nov2018

Shelf Control #144: Beartown by Fredrik Backman

Posted in Shelf Control by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.

Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! For more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out my introductory post, here.

Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!

Title: Beartown
Author: Fredrik Backman
Published: 2017
Length: 432 pages

What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):

People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.

How and when I got it:

I found a used copy at the big library sale last year.

Why I want to read it:

Well, like everyone else, I loved A Man Called Ove. I haven’t read anything else by Fredrik Backman, and I’ve been wanting to — and I’ve heard nothing but great things about Beartown. Plus, with a sequel released this year, I’m falling behind! Have you read Beartown? If so, what did you think? And what other Backman books do you recommend?

__________________________________

Want to participate in Shelf Control? Here’s how: