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As a big fan of Jonas Jonasson, I was excited to get his latest book for my birthday – what I didn’t realise was how much shorter it is than his other books so far at only ~130 pages!

He explains in the opening note to readers, why he wrote this book at this time:

“The times we live in are anything but simple, with war and conflicts everywhere, and it was for this reason that I felt the urge to write something that might give us hope. I wanted to write about friendship between people from different nations. Between my Swedish compatriots, for example, and the Germans, of whom I have grown very fond in recent years. And what came out was this story about a small town in Sweden where things are difficult: unemployment, young people moving away – even the local bookshoop has had to close. It doesn’t get much worse than that! But when blue and yellow meets black, red and gold, things finally start looking up…
With this in mind, I hope you enjoy my small contribution to German-Swedish friendship. Happy reading!”

So, from the blurb:

“All over the world, people sleep blissfully in Traumbett beds. These marvellous feats of German engineering have successfully cornered the mattress market everywhere. Everywhere, except Sweden and owner Konrad Kaltenbacher Jr is desperate to expand there.
With Konrad Jr’s sights set firmly on stylish Stockholm, Julia Bäck, district councillor of the small, decaying town of Halstaholm, has plans of her own. Seeing an opportunity to attract 800 new jobs, Julia jumps into spearheading a persuasive campaign to win the contract. A roundabout is hastily renamed in honour of Angela Merkel; a German school is quickly established under the leadership of a ten-year-old boy and three elderly pensioners; and the town swimming poo is rapidly transformed into a beerhouse – it had been empty for years anyway!
Julia’s get-up-and-go impresses the German boss… but has she made herself a tricky bed to lie in?”

It didn’t feel quite as wild and wacky as his other books, probably mostly due to the length, but if you hadn’t read his other stuff, you’d definitely still think it was a bit out there!

There were a few confusing moments when the book had to specify something was said in English, since they’re translated from Swedish, clearly in the original it would have been obvious, but for us, far less so!

A couple of standout lines:

• ‘”Have you thought this through, dear?” she added.
  “No,” said the mayor. “When would I have had time for that?”‘
• ‘There’s plenty wrong with me, I will admit. Just ask the fish in my aquarium at home, he knows. Or maybe he’s a she? I have no idea. It might be better not to know; he or she doesn’t talk, anyway. Autistic, is my guess.”‘
• And just a wonderful moment when someone is requested to get a statue of Franz Beckenbauer, a famous German footballer, but none are available, so they’re just told to get another German: “It doesn’t matter who, as long as he’s famous”, so you can guess what direction that goes in….

The latest book from Jonas Jonasson, and just as crazy as the rest of them!

The prophet is a lady called Petra, who has calculated that the world’s atmosphere is going to collapse in 12 days, but no one will listen to her. The idiot is a young man called Johan, who has spent his childhood as his brother’s unwitting servant, before his brother sells their fathers home for millions, leaves Johan an RV, and takes the rest of the money and scarpers off to a diplomatic job in Rome – but with Johan thinking this is incredibly generous of him. After a collision in a motor home park due to Johan having issues with the brake pedal, he and Petra meet!

For various reasons they end up on a journey in the RV with a lady called Agnes driving, and Johan as an extraordinary chef, trying to right some wrongs before the world ends. Many things occur which I won’t tell you about here, but it does include (as a high proportion of his books do) an encounter with a former world leader, as well as fraud, dictatorship and all sorts of messy things.

It’s crazy, but all his books are. This one very much falls into two parts, but I’m not going to tell you what separates them, so this is very hard to write!

Another great book from Jonas Jonasson, I’m a big fan!

It took me a while to get into this time – he does seem to have a habit of giving each character a very full and detailed back story, each of which are entertaining, but it can feel a bit jumping all over the place early on in the book as we meet everyone in turn, but once the main story got going it was great fun as per usual.

An estranged (without knowing it) son and an ex-wife of the same man, and seeking revenge, stumble across a business which sets out to do exactly that for people. Chaos ensues, there’s not much more to say without giving the fun away!

Some out of context quotes to give a feel for it:

• “Murder was out of the question. But what if the boy died anyway? That would be a different story. The problem was that eighteen-year-old boys don’t just do that out of the blue. He would need some help along the way.”
• “For years she had been certain that she wasn’t like other people, and that she therefore must be content with the small things in life. Now she lived with a person her own age who wasn’t like other people either; the two of them were more like each other.”
• “She launched into a lecture, saying that some evidence indicated that Jesus would have voted no to Rohypnol and everything else, but that this theory was primarily based upon Matthew’s testimony that one must turn the other cheek if someone slapped you on the right cheek. She made special note of the bit about the right cheek. This could be interpreted to mean that we should be forgiving only of those who are left-handed, and that was practically nobody. It was, after all, difficult to deal a blow to someone’s right cheek with one’s own right hand.”
• “His memory was all he could consult, and as everyone knew, that started to let you down once you were past thirty-five.”
• “One of the many things he’d observed up to this point on his journey was the small plastic cards. It was a form of payment, and yet it wasn’t. The buyer always seemed to keep the card, but the seller never got upset about it.”
• “No one was better than two Englishmen at becoming enemies over basically nothing. Over whose turn it was to use the dartboard at the pub. Over which football team one should support, actual quality notwithstanding. Two Brits couldn’t even agree on the simple question of whether or not they were part of Europe.”
• [On the arrival of electricity to a Kenyan village] “The only woman on the village council had argued for washing machines, stoves and water closets. When she added the future potential of Netflix, she got all the men except the chief on her side.”

The title really doesn’t give much away beyond the first page! Allan Karlsson doesn’t want to attend his 100th birthday party in the old people’s home, so he runs away – simple! Clearly there’s much more to it.

The book alternates between two stories.

• Firstly, following on from Allan’s escape, he ends up accidentally involved in some criminal activity with someone he meets, and so they end up on the run. They meet someone else who joins them, the journey continues, and the group gradually grows, along with some other unfortunate mishaps.
• Secondly, Allan’s life story up until his 100th birthday! It turns out he’s had a most interesting life, has met all sorts of world leaders and of some become their friend, and has influenced way more world events than you could imagine. And amongst all of this, he’s the most optimistic and relaxed person you ever did meet.

Because of the stories of his life, I ended up learning all sorts of 20th Century history – all about the Korean War, Stalin, General Franco, and many more This makes it sound like a serious book, but it also contains a large amount of absurdity, and a passion for vodka wherever he finds himself!

The book was actually originally written in Swedish and translated to English, but you really don’t notice that – it’s been done well.

It took me a while to get into the book, but once I got into it, it really did grip me, wanting to know how both stories would resolve!