Tag / Fredrik Backman

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Book 47 (of 52) – My Friends

My Friends – Fredrik Backman

A chance encounter with the artist of her favorite painting just hours before his death sends a young woman on an adventure with one of his best friends, learning about the artist and his childhood friends and what led to the creation of the painting.  Along the way, they come to realize that while loss is part of life, you find people through the journey to fill in those spaces.

For the first time in two-plus years, Fredrik Backman crosses my path again with his latest offering, My Friends.  This is a tale of how like-minded people come together and how the moments of our childhood friendships can outshine the painful realities of real life for decades.  I really do need to dive into Backman’s back catalog one of these days, since I always enjoy his work when I read it.

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Prolific Authors – Three Books

It is time once again to take a look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school.  This year, I’m once again on pace to set a new record for books read in a year, so I thought it would be nice to take a deeper dive into those books I’ve read through August of this year. Since our last check-in, I’ve read an additional 114 books, so there should be some movement over the past two years.  Without further ado, it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much over the years.  We continue today with the 21 authors I’ve read three times, one more than two years ago.

Kevin J. Anderson

Last read in the 20th century, he’s responsible for three of the X-Files books on my shelf.

Fredrik Backman

This Swedish author has become a recent favorite, showing up once a year prior to last year, with more to come, I’m sure.

The 22 Murders of Madison May – Max Barry

Max Barry

After a 17-year break, Barry returned to my attention in 2024 with The 22 Murders of Madison May.

Adam Carolla

The former comedian and current right-wing nutjob managed to get me to read three of his podcast regurgitations before being driven away.

Bill Carter

The former media reporter for the New York Times delivered three behind the scenes looks at the television industry, including the transition from Johnny Carson to Jay Leno and from Jay Leno to Conan O’Brien and back again.

Supreme Justice – Max Allan Collins

Max Allan Collins

Author of all entries of the Reeder and Rogers trilogy.

Keith R.A. DeCandido

Two Buffy the Vampire Slayer novels and a Spider-Man novel make up his works.

Diane Duane

A 23-year absence was broken in 2023 thanks to Intellivore, an entry in the Star Trek: The Next Generation series.

The Fireman – Joe Hill

Joe Hill

The son of Stephen King crossed my path again following a seven-year break.

Luke Jennings

The basis of the television show Killing Eve, Jennings’ trilogy takes a wildly different path.

David Lagercrantz

Stieg Larsson

Stieg Larsson wrote the first three entries in the story of Lisbeth Salander.  Following his death, David Lagercrantz continued the series with three entries of his own.

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2023: The Year In Movies

The return of my annual long December vacation helped push a healthy increase in movie watching for me, with my highest total since the lockdown in 2019.  I managed to watch 88 movies last year, my third consecutive year under 100, despite being home all day and not needing to bother with pesky things like a commute.  Or exercise.  The extended WGA and SAG strikes limiting new output probably didn’t help either.

Here’s a look back at the first 50 movies I watched last year and what recollection, if any, I have of them. The films are listed in the order I saw them.

Luckiest Girl Alive (2022)
Mila Kunis stars as a woman who sees her life start to unravel when she is faced with a years-old trauma.

Do Revenge (2022)
Two high school girls decide to trade off and get revenge on each other’s bully.

Orphan: First Kill (2022)
A long-delayed sequel to the 2009 horror film.

Margaux (2022)
A smart house sets its targets on a group of friends who have rented it for the weekend.

American Pie Presents: Girls’ Rules (2020)
The latest sequel to the comedy hit flips the script and has a trio of girls looking to lose their virginity before graduation.

Sick (2022)
Two friends quarantine at a lake house, but they quickly find out they are not alone.

The Menu (2022)
A chef prepares his final meal, taking out his frustrations on his diners on the way out.

Death on the Nile (2022)
Hercule Poirot takes on another case, based on the Agatha Christie novel.

Unhuman (2022)
A bus full of high school students try to survive after a crash leaves them vulnerable to an attacker.

Shotgun Wedding (2023)
A destination wedding goes off the rails when the wedding party is held hostage. Continue reading →

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You Ought To Be In (31) Pictures

Many years ago, using the weekly TV guide that came with the Sunday Chicago Tribune, I started keeping track of all of the movies I had seen over the course of my lifetime.  The guide would list the two main stars for each movie, and that is a tradition that I’ve carried on in my database ever since.  Given those guidelines, it is time once again to look at the now 107 actors that have starred in at least 10 films that I have seen, as of July 1.

We continue today with the one actor that has starred in exactly 31 movies that I have seen, a level left bare 3 years ago.

Tom Hanks

In 1984, Tom Hanks splashed on to the movie scene in the aptly titled Splash.  My biggest Tom Hanks year was 2017, when I saw four of his films, and there were six other years where I saw at least two of his films.  He has added a single new film, retaining his second-place position, which came earlier this year when I saw A Man Called Otto, the adaptation of the similarly named Fredrik Backman novel.

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Prolific Authors – 3 Books

Way back in December of 2011 (and again every other December since), we’ve taken a look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school.  Since I’ve far surpassed my “normal” reading output the last three yeas, I thought it would be nice to once again take a deeper dive into those books I’ve read through the start of October. Since our last check-in, I’ve read an additional 118 books, so there could be some movement over the past two years, but it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much in that time span.  We continue today with the 20 authors I’ve read thrice, an increase of eight over the past two years.

Kevin J. Anderson

Last read in the 20th century, he’s responsible for three of the X-Files books on my shelf.

A Man Called Ove – Fredrik Backman

Fredrik Backman

This Swedish author has become a recent favorite, showing up once a year over the past three years, with more to come, I’m sure.

Adam Carolla

The former comedian and current right-wing nutjob managed to get me to read three of his podcast regurgitations.

Bill Carter

The former media reporter for the New York Times delivered three behind the scenes looks at the television industry, including the transition from Johnny Carson to Jay Leno and from Jay Leno to Conan O’Brien and back again.

Executive Order – Max Allan Collins

Max Allan Collins

Author of all entries of the Reeder and Rogers trilogy.

Suzanne Collins

The woman behind a little trilogy about a young woman named Katniss who upends her entire world.

Keith R.A. DeCandido

Two Buffy the Vampire Slayer novels and a Spider-Man novel make up his works.

Alex Finlay

A DC lawyer writing under a penname, Finlay has placed three books in my hands over the past two years.

The Guest List – Lucy Foley

Lucy Foley

Another recent fave, Foley, a New York Times best seller, has shown up annually since 2021.

Megan Goldin

The former Reuters correspondent first appeared on my radar in 2021 with her debut, The Escape Room.

Paula Hawkins

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Book 10 (of 52) – The Winners

The Winners – Fredrik Backman

A storm that rolls through Beartown and Hed and the death of a local barkeep bring old faces, and old grudges, back to town.  The destruction of Hed’s ice rink seems to be the final piece of the puzzle to help the backers of Beartown to convince the council to shut down Hed’s team, but a plan to shut down both teams and start from scratch threatens both towns.  Meanwhile, survivors of a two-year old rape and its fallout find themselves tested again when a young kid attempts to get revenge for a different crime.

Fredrick Backman returns with The Winners, the third and supposed final entry in his Beartown series.  Had I known that before starting it, I may have put it off, since I haven’t read any of the others.  But he does a good job of introducing all of the characters for new readers and telling a story that, while it builds upon what I assume occurred in the previous works, stands on its own.  Now that I have an inkling of what the novels are about (Beartown, as a title, pointed me in an entirely different direction), I will have to circle back and check them out.

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Book 5 (of 52) – A Man Called Ove

A Man Called Ove – Fredrik Backman

When a man called Ove loses his job and finds himself with nothing to do during the day, he decides to end his own life in order to be reunited with his recently deceased wife.  Every time he tries, though, something gets in his way and, slowly, he builds up a small community of neighbors that rely upon, and eventually love, him, which gives him a reason to keep living.

In his debut novel, A Man Called Ove, Fredrick Backman builds a relatable character: the old curmudgeon who lives for following the rules and finds fault with everyone around him.  Whether it’s a family member, neighbor, or co-worker, we’ve all had experience with some variation of this character.  That relatability goes a long way towards establishing a relationship with Ove, as Backman goes back and forth between the present day, where Ove gets pulled into relationships with neighbors new and old, and the past, where we learn about Ove’s upbringing and his life with his wife.

This is now two years in a row that I’ve enjoyed something from Bakman.  I’ll need to dig deeper into his backlog going forward for more hours on enjoyment.

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2021: The Year In Books

As we wrap up 2021, my first full year remote working, I managed to read a whopping 54 books, an increase of 31 books over last year and my first year completing the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge.  I surpassed last year’s total in mid-June, passed my best years, 2015 and 2016, in late August, and completed book 52 with two weeks left in the year.  I read (or listened) to 18,670 pages, by far my highest total of all time and only the second time I’ve passed 10,000.

Of those books, 16 were non-fiction and, of the 36 novels, 10 were tied to a TV show, either as the source material or as a tie-in.  None of the books came out of my dwindling “to-read” drawer, with 43 e-books and 4 audiobooks.  For the first time since I was a kid, I got myself a library card, which helped me procure 14 of the books.

Just less than half of the books I read this year were by authors I have read before. The 31 authors that I read for the first this year were:

  • Tegan Quin
  • Sara Quin
  • Lucy Foley
  • Jenna Fischer
  • Matt Haig
  • Eric Nusbaum
  • Jon Taffer
  • Charlotte Douglas
  • Susan Kearney
  • Fredrik Backman
  • Jeff Pearlman
  • Minka Kent
  • Alan Cumming
  • Megan Goldin
  • Molly Bloom
  • Barack Obama
  • Ali Wong
  • Timothy Ferriss
  • Issa Rae
  • Walter Tevis
  • Tess Gerritson
  • Gary Braver
  • Andy Weir
  • Matthew Walker
  • James Clear
  • Grady Hendrix
  • Simon Sinek
  • Jason Fung
  • Julia Spiro
  • Jon Pessah
  • Ruth Ware

Erle Stanley Gardner, Mary Kubica, Jeffery Deaver, Andy Weir and Karin Slaughter were the only authors that I read multiple titles from during 2021.

6 of the books I read were released this year, while 5 of them were released last century, with the oldest first published in 1933.

Finally, the breakdown by month, which was fairly consistent across the entire year.

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Book 15 (of 52) – Anxious People

Anxious People – Fredrik Backman

In Anxious People, Fredrik Backman tells a story about a bridge.  Or, maybe, about idiots.  Or about a bank robbery that wasn’t, which turned into a hostage situation that, again, wasn’t.  With nothing quite what it seems, a group of people, connected by circumstances new and old, are interviewed by the police as they try to find the hostage taker.

I first heard of Anxious People when it finished second, to The Midnight Library, in the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Fiction novel of 2020.  It kept popping up, since my friend Val had read it, and it seemed interesting.  Backman’s style her was something completely different, giving away hints and facts about the characters in the story, and the story itself, in bits and pieces as the tale moves along.  I’d be interested in seeing what else Backman has done and hope he can deliver again.