I decided that I’ll just show you some of my favourite book pictures that I took for the blog. Looking at pictures is always easier than reading a text, especially on days when you just want to relax.

Here are the photos. If you click the titles you’ll get to my reviews of the books.

1. A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

(There are more photos of Usyaka and the book.)

2. The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar

3. Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller

4. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

There’s no review because I haven’t read the book yet. (And taking into account my unfortunate experiment with reading fantasy, I’m not sure how soon I will read this one). There’s still this nice wintery photo

5. The Birds and other stories by Daphne du Maurier

Here’s the review of The Birds.

And here are the reviews of the other stories.

6. Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

7. Melmoth by Sarah Perry

8. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

9. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

10. The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

This book will be one of my first reads in 2019, so come back soon to read the review!

Now with the paperback I can give myself time to laugh at all the funny phrases and to underline all the clever similes! There are so many of them!

I watched the movie adaptation. As I expected, it did turn out to be good. No parts of the book were spoiled, they are just not all there. You can laugh and cry while watching the movie but you can do this three times more often while reading the book.

I am now really looking forward to the adaptation starring Tom Hanks! Tom Hanks will make a perfect Ove.

Whatever version you decide to watch, please, read the book first. It is still much better!

More cats&books photos are here. My main post about A Man Called Ove is here. Subscribe to the blog for daily book posts!

Genre: novel. Stars from Goodreads: 4.35. Stars from me: 5.

A Man Called Ove is a fairytale for adults. There are no dragons or harry potters, but its purpose is the same. It soothes and lulls you while telling you a story of kindness where good conquers bad. In this way, it’s similar to Woody Allen’s movies where the plots are clear, characters are understandable and the events develop according to the old school rules of story telling.

A man called Ove is a grumpy old chap, created so perfectly he annoys you as much as he annoys his neighbours. The book then goes on to show what happened to Ove to make him who he is, and who he actually is.

Not only does the book make you laugh and cry, it makes you do so simultaneously. It’s heart-wrenching and heartwarming at the same time.

The story is written so well that I eventually gave up on writing out the quotes. I liked them all. I ordered a printed copy, and when it arrives I will probably underline each phrase in the book. The author, Fredrik Backman, does overuse similes (similes are phrases like “when she giggled she sounded the way Ove imagined champagne bubbles would have sounded if they were capable of laughter”), but they are so good you just want them to keep coming.

The audio version, though, doesn’t do the book justice. The narrator can read, of course, but only comparing to people who cannot. He ignores even obvious leads from the text. The text says “she hissed”, the narrator groans, the text says “he mumbled”, the narrator screams. This oxymoronic reading screws with your brain. It’s tiring to be constantly watching the actual words and ignoring narrator’s intonation to adjust the perception.

I found out the book was made into a movie. The movie is also Swedish. According to my humble taste movies from that part of the globe are worth watching, especially movies based on such books. I was also excited to learn that there will be an adaptation starring Tom Hanks. He would be perfect for the role!

The book gets five stars from me and I would suggest checking out the movie too.