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Showing posts with the label A man called Ove

Blogging Anniversary - 10 years

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A while ago I checked when I did my first blog post, in order to celebrate with an anniversary post. Well, that day came and went without any reaction from me. Better late than never, so here a reminder of my very first blog post from 24 October 2012.  The book was New Finnish Grammar  by Diego Marani. Marani is an Italian novelist, translator and newspaper columnist. While working as a translator for the European Union he invented a language ‘Europanto’ which is a mixture of languages and based on the common practice of word-borrowing usage of many EU languages. It was a suitable book to start with, being a book about letters, languages and memories. With a beautiful prose, the novel went directly to my heart.  "One night at Trieste in September 1943 a seriously wounded soldier is found on the quay. The doctor, of a newly arrived German hospital ship, Pietri Friari gives the unconscious soldier medical assistance. His new patient has no documents or anything that can ide...

A man called Ove by Fredrik Backman

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This is one of the books I grabbed with the promotion "Take 4 pay for 3" while I was in Sweden. I had heard a lot about it and also read some very positive reviews from you out there. I can only agree, what a wonderful, funny reflection on people and lives today. It has been compared to "The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared", and it is in the same genre, but still a totally different book. The humour and the reflections on life are the same though. This is the story of Ove, recently widowed, and still missing his wife. She was the only person in the world that understood him. He is a grumpy old man, and was already when he was young. A very practical person who can fully take care of himself and fix everything around him that needs to be fixed. Not very verbal, maybe not very intelligent, but he makes up his own world and live in it according to his principals. He is annoying most people around him, and now it is even worst after ...