Backman, Fredrik "Britt-Marie was here"

Backman, Fredrik "Britt-Marie was here" (Swedish: Britt-Marie var här) - 2014

This was my second book by Fredrik Backman. And my last. The first one was quite nice, funny, but I couldn't care for this one. I didn't like the protagonist, Britt-Marie because I'm not OCD even though I like order, I don't like football, so that didn't allure me, either. The story is described as "funny and moving", I couldn't find either.

This was a book club book, otherwise I might not have finished it.

We read this in our international online book club in February 2025.

Some comments from the other members:

"It scored pretty low by most others in the discussion.

Some commented that it felt more like a movie script than a real novel. Which makes sense as Backman's books have many of them been filmed both in Sweden and internationally. For me it was a nice light humorous read, maybe more like a fun summer read than real thought raising literature. This despite me hating the main character from the very start. I guess much of Backman's stories are like that, with quite stereotypical characters, and predictable plot and then an uplifting twist at the end. The timeline of the book felt familiar in terms of what was happening in small towns here in the Nordics in maybe 90-s or early 00s. Services being closed down and some neighbourhoods being quite poor. Not really something I believe can be saved by one determined lady and the community. But a nice thought."

From the back cover:

"Britt-Marie can’t stand mess. A disorganized cutlery drawer ranks high on her list of unforgivable sins. She is not one to judge others—no matter how ill-mannered, unkempt, or morally suspect they might be. It’s just that sometimes people interpret her helpful suggestions as criticisms, which is certainly not her intention.

But hidden inside the socially awkward, fussy busybody is a woman who has more imagination, bigger dreams, and a warmer heart that anyone around her realizes.

When Britt-Marie walks out on her cheating husband and has to fend for herself in the miserable backwater town of Borg—of which the kindest thing one can say is that it has a road going through it—she finds work as the caretaker of a soon-to-be demolished recreation center. The fastidious Britt-Marie soon finds herself being drawn into the daily doings of her fellow citizens, an odd assortment of miscreants, drunkards, layabouts. Most alarming of all, she’s given the impossible task of leading the supremely untalented children’s soccer team to victory. In this small town of misfits, can Britt-Marie find a place where she truly belongs?

Funny and moving, sweet and inspiring, Britt-Marie Was Here celebrates the importance of community and connection in a world that can feel isolating."

Hyde, Catherine Ryan "When I found you"

 

Hyde, Catherine Ryan "When I found you" - 2009

A member of my book club mentioned she really liked the books by Catherine Ryan Hyde. I had never heard of her before, so she lent me one of her titles.

It looks like Mrs. Hyde is a very diligent writer because she has published 24 books sind 1997, this being her eleventh.

A lot of topics are touched in this book. Not that it makes it superficial or anything, the whole story is very touching and the different topics float into each other perfectly. Abandonment, foster care, professional sports, early love, late love, poverty. You would think with all those subjects, it is more a chick lit type of book but it was not. I quite liked it.

From the back cover:

"When Nathan McCann discovers a newborn baby boy half buried in the woods, he assumes he's found a tiny dead body. But then the baby moves and in one remarkable moment, Nathan's life is changed forever.

The baby is sent to grow up with his grandmother, but Nathan can't forget him and is compelled to pay her a visit. He asks for one simple promise - that one day she will introduce the boy to Nathan and tell him, 'This is the man who found you in the woods.'

Years pass and Nathan assumes that the old lady has not kept her promise, until one day an angry, troubled boy arrives on his doorstep with a suitcase . . ."

Gurnah, Abdulrazak "Pilgrims Way"

Gurnah, Abdulrazak "Pilgrims Way" - 1988

Daud is a Muslim from Tanzania who goes to England in the 70s. He works as an orderly in a hospital, does what thousands of immigrants do, cleans up after the white people. He meets prejudice and racism, the promised land is not what he expected it to be but a return into his home country is impossible.

In this situation he shares his thoughts, his fears, his hopes with us. And that of other immigrants but also the "hosts" which are not always that hospitable, so we better call them the natives.

The author describes an England shortly after the colonial period when they still had to get used to not being the "master race" anymore. I don't just speak about the British Isles, there are people all over the world who still don't understand that.

But, even more, he describes the problems of an immigrant. If you really want to know, read this books.

Oh, one thing he talks about a lot is cricket. I still don't understand it any better.

Book description:

"By the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature An extraordinary depiction of the life of an immigrant, as he struggles to come to terms with the horror of his past and the meaning of his pilgrimage to England. Dear Catherine, he began. Here I sit, making a meal out of asking you to dinner. I don't really know how to do it. To have cultural integrity, I would have to send my aunt to speak, discreetly, to your aunt, who would then speak to your mother, who would speak to my mother, who would speak to my father, who would speak to me and then approach your mother, who would then approach you. Demoralised by small persecutions and the squalor and poverty of his life, Daud takes refuge in his imagination. He composes wry, sardonic letters hectoring friends and enemies, and invents a lurid colonial past for every old man he encounters. His greatest solace is cricket and the symbolic defeat of the empire at the hands of the mighty West Indies.Although subject to attacks of bitterness and remorse, his captivating sense of humour never deserts him as he struggles to come to terms with the horror of his past and the meaning of his pilgrimage to England."

Abdulrazak Gurnah received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021 "for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents".

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

Aaronovitch, David "Paddling to Jerusalem"

Aaronovitch, David "Paddling to Jerusalem. An Aquatic Tour of Our Small Country" - 2000

I had read a few books by the author's brother Ben, so when I saw the name Aaronovitch in a used bookstore, I just had to take it home. Plus, the title "Paddling to Jerusalem" promised an interesting story. I envisaged something taking place in Israel. How wrong I was.

My disappointment quickly changed into joy when I discovered that first, David Aaronovitch was paddling around England, so what's not to like? And second, he mentions a few people who have written books about his country before, i.a. Bill Bryson, one of my favourite writers whom this author also seems to admire. So, we see him first on his search for the kayak that is going to help him get around the country and then follow him and said kayak plus a copy of "Middlemarch" from London up to the north and back again where he meets all sorts of people and visits all kinds of towns and villages.

A nice story about someone who gets up and does something completely different where many people think they are getting too old for this kind of stuff, including myself. Thankfully, there are always writers like this one to help us discover the world.

From the back cover:

"David Aaronovitch, the award-winning columnist and broadcaster canoes round the waterways and canals of England on the eve of the new Millennium.

In the last summer of the twentieth century, a rather large man got into a small boat and went out to discover England. On its canals and rivers, from the Thames to the Trent, from Camden Lock to Skipton, David Aaronovitch fumbled for the pulse of the least known nation in Britain.

He discovered a land of saucy grannies, voyaging landladies, Barratt's estates with well-tended gardens, childhood museums, opticians, aromatherapy, steam railways, scented candles, shopping malls, computers, coffee cake, stress phalli, man Utd supporters, rock festivals, soap opera behaviour, young men driving too fast, Buddhists, urchins, dead deer, private property, new universities, tattooed anglers and pewter herons.

On the way, Aaronovitch survived rapids, camping, stone-throwing hooligans, attempted murder by swans, a whole day without much food, the Beaverbrook Hotel in Burnley, solitude and a terrible ennui. Death stalked him for the entire journey. After four days he gave up, and then began again.

And among the towns and villages he encountered a selection of ghosts from the nation's past: bad King John, Aaron the Jew of Lincoln, Stanley Baldwin and the painter, Hilda Carline.

Yet in the process he found out one or two useful things about himself. Like the lithe and unjustified optimism it required for an unfit forty-year-old to suddenly take off on his own for months, using a form of transport that was inherently unstable, for reasons which were occasionally inscrutable - even to himself.

Hilarious, provocative and moving, Paddling to Jerusalem is the story of what happens when a bad idea gets the better of you and, in the process, becomes a very good idea indeed."

Oates, Joyce Carol "Sexy"

Oates, Joyce Carol "Sexy" - 2005

It's always a pleasure to read another book by Joyce Carol Oates, even though most of them are not happy books about happy people. They are real books about real people.

Like here. It's fascinating how she manages again and again to get into people's brains, how to explain to us how others think, what their ideas are, their conviction. Her grasp of language is just as great as her empathies.

This is a young adult novel but can be enjoyed by adults alike. Actually, I think it should be read by any adults who have a teenager in the house, there is so much to it, so much insight that your own children will not give you. Says the mother of two boys. I know a lot of teenage boys who never talk about anything personal to their own parents and this is depicted so well in this story. The confusion going on in their heads is brought to paper but in a way that we can begin to understand their confusion and how they try to deal with it.

As most of my readers know, JCO is one of my favourite authors and this story, like all her others, is fascinating.

From the back cover:

"North Falls swim team member Darren Flynn is a guy' guy, a jock. He 'shows promise' and has integrity in the classroom - just ask his teachers. He's shy, but sexy. Just ask the girls who are drawn to him like moths to a flame.

Darren Flynn is something different to everyone he encounters, and that’s fine by him. Until something disturbing, something ambiguous happens that rocks Darren to the core, making him wonder: Who is Darren Flynn?"

Brown, Daniel James "The Boys in the Boat"

Brown, Daniel James "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" - 2013

So, I'm reading this with my real life international book club. Very interesting if you like non-fiction, real life, even if - like me - you don't like sports, there is so much in this book about humanity, perseverance, history ...

The world in 1936. The Nazis are "hosting" the Olympic Games. Hitler wants to show the world how brilliant his country (and his party and his race) is. He'd rather not have Jews or coloured athletes participate but that is against the Olympic spirit (even though he does manage to keep a lot of them out). So, he'd prefer to see them defeated. Which doesn't work all the way, as we all well know. Who doesn't remember Jesse Owen winning four gold medals in the sprint and long jump.

One of his hopes was the rowing competition, especially the Men's eights. "His" crew only made Bronze.

But it was not only the Nazis that needed to be beaten in this case. Eight boys from the lowest classes made it into a rowing team that until before had only been composed of rich students from elite universities. These boys didn't just have to row well, they had to study well and work to support not just themselves but in many cases even their family, brothers, sisters, parents ...

And this is their story. One man managed to write down what these young men had to go through in that time, how they achieved their dream and won Gold in an impossible race.

Daniel James Brown interviewed mainly one of the team for this extraordinary book, Joe Rantz, who had to fend for himself from a very early age, whose mother died when he was very young and whose father left him alone a couple of years later. How he managed to become one of the most successful athletes after that is a long story that is definitely worth reading.

We discussed this in our international book club in February 2015.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"Out of the depths of the Depression comes an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times - the improbable, intimate account of how nine working-class boys from the American West showed the world at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin what true grit really meant.

Daniel James Brown’s stirring book tells the story of the University of Washington’s 1936 eight-oar crew, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions of Americans. It was an unlikely quest from the start - a team composed of the sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, who first had to maser the harsh physical and psychological demands of collegiate rowing and then defeat the East Coast's elite teams that had long dominated the sport.

The emotional heart of the story lies with Joe Rantz, a teenager without family or prospects, who rows not only to regain his shattered self-regard but to find a real place for himself in the world. Plagued by personal demons, a devastating family history, and crushing poverty, Joe knows that a seat in the Washington freshman shell is his only option to remain in college. The crew is slowly assembled by an enigmatic and determined coach and mentored by a visionary, eccentric British boat designer, but it is the boys' commitment to one another that makes them a winning team. Finally gaining the Olympic berth they long sought, they face their biggest challenge - rowing against the German and Italian crews under Adolf Hitler's gaze and before Leni Riefenstahl's cameras at the “Nazi Olympics” in Berlin, 1936.

Drawing on the boys’ own diaries and journals, their photos and memories of a once-in-a-lifetime shared dream,  Daniel James Brown has created a portrait of an era, a celebration of a remarkable achievement, and chronicle of one extraordinary young man's personal quest, all in this immensely satisfying book."

Bryson, Bill "One Summer"

Bryson, Bill "One Summer: America, 1927" - 2013

What can I say about this book? Bill Bryson belongs to some of my favourite authors. This is certainly not one of my favourite books by him. Not because it's not funny because most of his non-travel books are not necessarily funny. Not because it's about an area I haven't visited because that is the fact with most of the destinations and places in his books, as well.

I think it is mainly because I'm not much interested in sports and there is a lot of it in there, especially of American sports that is even less known to me than what they do over here, just not a fan of group sports, never have been, never will be. But also because I learned a lot of things that really shocked me about people who I hadn't if not admired then at least estimated before. And it's also not that I didn't want to learn that. If someone is not a good person, I'd rather know.

It just seems as if that whole year 1927 was a horrible one and that the picture I get about the United States of America isn't a nice one, either. There is a lot of crime and even more greed in this book. This is probably the first Bill Bryson book I would not want to read again.

It is well written and well researched, as all of his books are. Maybe too well researched. That might be the problem.

It won't keep me from reading any other books of this fabulous author but had it been my first one, I probably wouldn't have tried any more.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2023.

From the back cover:

"Britain's favourite writer of narrative non-fiction Bill Bryson travels back in time to a forgotten summer when America came of age, took centre stage, and, in five eventful months, changed the world for ever.

In the summer of 1927, America had a booming stock market, a president who worked just four hours a day (and slept much of the rest of the time), a semi-crazed sculptor with a mad plan to carve four giant heads into an inaccessible mountain called Rushmore, a devastating flood of the Mississippi, a sensational murder trial, and a youthful aviator named Charles Lindbergh who started the summer wholly unknown and finished it as the most famous man on earth. (So famous that Minnesota considered renaming itself after him.)

It was the summer that saw the birth of talking pictures, the invention of television, the peak of Al Capone’s reign of terror, the horrifying bombing of a school in Michigan by a madman, the ill-conceived decision that led to the Great Depression, the thrillingly improbable return to greatness of a wheezing, over-the-hill baseball player named Babe Ruth, and an almost impossible amount more.

In this hugely entertaining book, Bill Bryson spins a story of brawling adventure, reckless optimism and delirious energy, with a cast of unforgettable and eccentric characters, with trademark brio, wit and authority."

Read more from this author, I have listed all his books in this post:
Bill Bryson – Funniest Author Ever 

Hamill, Pete "Snow in August"

Hamill, Pete "Snow in August" - 1998

Brooklyn, two years after World War II. An 11 year old Irish Catholic boy whose father died in battle and who lives alone with his mother befriends a Czech Rabbi and learns about Judaism and the Holocaust. Together they face racism and violence. Together with Michael, we learn about the Yiddish language, Jewish history, Jewish literature, the Jewish folkloristic Golem and - baseball.

The story is well-told, switching between the past and the present, building anticipation. You could almost read the story in a day but you don't want to say good-bye too early to the characters as you hopefully grow to love them as much as I did.

I really loved this book and would like to read more by this author.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"In the year 1947, Michael Devlin, eleven years old and 100 percent American-Irish, is about to forge an extraordinary bond with a refugee of war named Rabbi Judah Hirsch. Standing united against a common enemy, they will summon from ancient sources a power in desperately short supply in modern Brooklyn-a force that's forgotten by most of the world but is known to believers as magic."

McGarry Morris, Mary "Songs in Ordinary Time"

McGarry Morris, Mary "Songs in Ordinary Time" - 1995

I chose this book because it is on the Oprah list, and have I loved all the novels on that list but one and that was by the only author who declined to be on the list in the first place.

Anyway, an American town in 1960, a time I remember a little. Almost anyone in this novel is poor but that's not all. My family was poor when I grew up but there is a huge difference, we had a family. It looks like there is not one normal functioning family or relationship in this whole book. Everyone has huge problems, starting with alcoholism and ending with murder. There is not a single person in the whole story that looks at life realistically, the most sensitive people are probably the 12 to 17 year old children but, having said that, they don't come across as the brightest ones, either. Life in Atkinson, Vermont was not just hard, it was depressing. The setting somehow reminded me of John Steinbeck's books, one of our book club members asked why all his books have to be so depressing.

Having said that, the book is well written, it builds anticipation, you hold on, you hope for something good to happen to the characters, you feel for them. You don't really expect a happy ending but a glimmer of hope. And this is what happens, in the end, not everything is alright but the outlook is not too bad. And, it is a long book. I like big books, 740 pages of stories, enough time to get to know everyone well. The characters are so well describes, and also the situations,

Still, I hope this is not normal life in America, or at least was not, and that there were ordinary families with a mother and a father who work together for the welfare of their children, who allow them to get a decent education, who converse with their neighbours and relatives.

All in all, I am glad I read this book and I can see why it is on the Oprah list. Not necessarily my favourite of her list, I would have liked to see at least some "normal" people, but a good read. I'm surprised it hasn't been turned into a movie, yet, it would be a great subject.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"Songs in Ordinary Time is set in the summer of 1960 - the last of quiet times and America's innocence. It centers on Marie Fermoyle, a strong but vulnerable woman whose loneliness and ambition for her children make her easy prey for the dangerous con man Omar Duvall. Marie's children are Alice, seventeen - involved with a troubled young priest; Norm, sixteen - hotheaded and idealistic; and Benjy, twelve - isolated and misunderstood, and so desperate for his mother's happiness that he hides the deadly truth only he knows about Duvall. Among a fascinating cast of characters we meet the children's alcoholic father, Sam Fermoyle, now living with his senile mother and embittered sister; Sam's meek brother-in-law, who makes anonymous 'love' calls from the bathroom of his ailing appliance store; and the Klubock family, who - in complete contrast to the Fermoyles - live an orderly life in the perfect house next door."

Streatfeild, Noel "Ballet Shoes"

Streatfeild, Noel "Ballet Shoes" - 1936

Three adopted orphan girls take dance lessons. That's the main plot. They all have different kind of talents and different kind of views, that makes the story interesting.

I must admit, I never heard of this author before watching "You've Got Mail". But Meg Ryan described it so nicely, when I saw the book in our library (helping my son to find books), I just had to borrow and read it. It is a little old and you notice this when you read it, but, it's quite a nice story that you can still read more than half a century after it's been written.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"Pauline longs to be an actress.

Petrova is happiest playing with cars and engines.

And if she could . . . Posy would dance all day!

But when their benefactor Great-Uncle Matthew disappears, the Fossil girls share a future of a dazzling life on stage, where their dreams and fears will soon come true . . ."

Chabon, Michael "The Yiddish Policemen's Union"

Chabon, Michael "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" - 2007

This book had been suggested for our book club but hadn't been chosen. As I had enjoyed "Summerland" and like alternative history novels, I tried this one, as well. It was graded as a detective story as well as science fiction. Science fiction is even less my kind of read and I'm also not very keen on detective stories but this novel just sounded very interesting. Instead of settling in Israel, Jewish refugees are sent to Alaska after World War II, especially after the State Israel was destroyed (remember: "alternative history"). They move to Sitka which becomes a Yiddish-speaking town.

We have quite an interesting detective story here with many riddles, it's the story of a loser who tries to achieve something and always fails, as well as the saga of an unsettled people trying to find a home. Despite the negative background and the glum outlook on the future, the book is spiced with a lot of good humour.

Interesting novel, good writing.

Apparently, the Coen Brothers want to use the material for a film, should be interesting.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2023.

From the back cover:

"For sixty years, Jews have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of revelations of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. Now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end: once again the tides of history threaten to sweep them up and carry them off into the unknown.

For sixty years, Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of revelations of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. Proud, grateful, and longing to be American, the Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant, gritty, soulful, and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. For sixty years they have been left alone, neglected and half-forgotten in a backwater of history. Now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end: once again the tides of history threaten to sweep them up and carry them off into the unknown.

But homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. He and his half-Tlingit partner, Berko Shemets, can't catch a break in any of their outstanding cases. Landsman's new supervisor is the love of his life - and also his worst nightmare. And in the cheap hotel where he has washed up, someone has just committed a murder - right under Landsman's nose. Out of habit, obligation, and a mysterious sense that it somehow offers him a shot at redeeming himself, Landsman begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy. But when word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, Landsman soon finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, hopefulness, evil, and salvation that are his heritage - and with the unfinished business of his marriage to Bina Gelbfish, the one person who understands his darkest fears.

At once a gripping whodunit, a love story, an homage to 1940s noir, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a novel only Michael Chabon could have written."

Chabon, Michael "Summerland"

Chabon, Michael "Summerland" - 2002 

As a lot of us had young children/teenagers at the time, someone suggested we read a youth book. Several were suggested and we chose this one, "Summerland" by Michael Chabon.

This novel describes a little island in Washington state that has been blessed with perfect weather during all their baseball games. There is a reason for this, and the reader soon finds out that not only human beings inhabit this little piece of our earth and that there is more to our globe than what we call our world.

This is fantasy mixed with a little sports and adventure, a perfect book for young teens and pre-teens who enjoy magic but also for anybody older who likes fairy tales and fantasy. I'm not a big fantasy fan myself but quite enjoyed this little novel. And I learned a little about baseball, something a European will probably never understand, at least not this one. ;-)

We discussed this in our international book club in April 2004.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2023.

From the back cover:

"Summerland is the story of a young hero on a quest through the strange world of the American Faery. This is a fantasy for readers of all ages, set against the background of the American myth. The Clam Island fairies are in grave peril. War is coming, another battle in an ancient conflict. When the band sends for a champion, they get an 11 year-old boy named Ethan Feld. He hates baseball and wants to quit his losing team, but Jennifer T. Rideout loves baseball and won't let him quit. The two find themselves on a journey that includes zeppelins, werefoxes, Indian mythology, sasquatches, wendigos, and the haunted 161 year old husk of George Armstrong Custer. Finally Ethan becomes who he is: a changeling, a hero, and even a man. - Publisher Statement"

If you enjoyed this, you might also like Michael Chabon's "The Yiddish Policeman's Union".

Nichols, Peter "A Voyage for Madmen"

Nichols, Peter "A Voyage for Madmen" - 2002

The title of this book is fantastic. The guys who undertook this journey really were mad, and if it didn't show before, it surely did afterwards. I am no big fan of sports but this book was really captivating. You just had to fear with the sailors and their families and friends. I loved this book - and so did the other members of my book club.

It's just amazing what people are willing to sacrifice for their five minutes of fame or even for the feeling to have done it. I'm all for winning, but not at any cost. And still, I understood those guys, somehow.

We discussed this in our book club in January 2005.

From the back cover:

"The story of the last great sea adventure - the 1967/68 Golden Globe round the world yacht race. Nine people - a Frenchman, an Italian and six Englishmen began the race. Only one finished. This is their story.

In 1967 nine men set out in small boats to race each other round the world. It had never been done before. This was before satellites provided pin-point navigation. Their world at sea was far closer to Captain Cook's age than ours. When they sailed, heading for the world's stormiest seas, they vanished over the horizon into the unknown.

One man, sending reports of tremendous progress, never left the Atlantic. These were not sportsmen- one didn't even know how to sail. Once at sea, they were exposed to conditions frightening beyond imagination and loneliness almost unknown. Their boats were primitive compared with the today's yachts. The living space was the size of a VW bus. Sealed inside their tiny craft, the sailors met their truest selves. This it turned out, was their greatest danger. They failed and succeeded on the grandest scale."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2022.