The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson - 2009 (translated from Swedish, 2012)

Allan Karlsson lives in a old-people's home and a birthday party has been organised to celebrate his 100th birthday. But Allan is bored so he decides to give the party a miss and climbs out of his bedroom window. He walks down to the bus station where he boards a bus to a random destination in Sweden. And so unfolds a picaresque story involving criminals, several murders, a suitcase full of cash and incompetent police. As the escapade unfolds, we get flashes of Allan’s past life and his incredible involvement in the main events of the 20th century...

We loved Allan’s odd personality: he is an expert in explosives and gets involved in all sorts of military missions all round the world but Allan always refuses to take any sides politically. Allan is like a Forrest Gump character, focused with the missions he fulfills but not fully understanding the full impact of his actions. He stays detached but also stays true to his word and believes He shows great expertise and cleverness but always stays naive in his approaches and this makes Allan’s character charming and endearing. There are even signs of Asperger syndrome in his personality.  Allan is also a great socialiser and linguist; with the help of a few vodkas and tequilas, he befriends the most powerful men during the last century such as President Truman, Franco...

Allan goes on his escapade with a group of friends who are equally endearing: they are all unique in their own ways, all misfits. We have Benny who nearly knows everything as he was a student for 20 years; we have Beauty, a red-haired fouled-mouthed middle -aged woman who looks after an elephant... and we have Julius, a petty criminal who offers Allan refuge. This singular and incongruous group is bound by true friendship and true affection and concern for each other...as they continuously escape from Detective Aronsson’s grasp.

The backdrop to this charming and comical chase is a detailed account of the world’s main historical events which took place during the last 100 years. In this clever way the author mocks the extremism of politics such as fascism or communism or any extreme movements. We are taken all round the world, from Sweden to Spain, the USA, China, Iran....And, each event is linked together as Allan plays a role in each single one.

We all enjoyed this book, first of all for its title. In fact the author, Jonas Jonasson says that he fell in love with the novel as soon as he had invented the title. It is well written, the style flows easily which makes it a great read. Some comical events made us roar with laughter, especially when the elephant is made to sit on a nasty gangster, flattening him under its weight!

Would we recommend this book? Most definitely! We all loved this incredible tale. And it made us wonder what we will do when we reach 100!

We will be meeting on Thursday 14th November 2013 at 20:00 at The Ashendon Hundred (pub). Sue  Lewin has kindly offered to 'host'. We will be discussing Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K Jerome.

September 2014 - Book Choices

We will return to The HUNDRED of Ashendon (formerly the Gatehangers' Inn) on THURSDAY 12th September at 8pm. We will be discussing The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson. Mary has kindly offered to 'host'.

Choices for our next book are:

The Husbands Secret by Liane Moriarty

Cecilia Fitzpatrick thinks she knows her husband inside out, so she's surprised to accidentally discover in the attic a dusty sealed envelope with "for my wife - to be opened only the event of my death" written on it in his writing. When she casually mentions it to him on the phone, his reaction makes it clear that the last thing he wants if for her to open that envelope - but why?

Leaving us with this intriguing puzzle the story then jumps to another woman, Tess, whose husband has fallen in love with someone else. Shocked and distraught, Tess makes immediate plans to go and stay with her mother in Sydney, taking her young son with her. Then we move onto a third woman, Rachael, whose much loved daughter died many years previously and whose life now centres on her grandson. Shortly the three women's lives will intersect and the secrete that Cecilia’s husband has been guarding for so long will impact on them all.

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome

Swallows and Amazons is a book that sits comfortably in the category of "timeless classic". It is the wholesome story of four young children, John, Susan, Titty and Roger who set out in their boat (the Swallow of the title) to an island of adventure. All seems well until they encounter their enemy. At first they are angry at the invasion of their peaceful haven by these Amazon pirates, Nancy and Peggy, who claim ownership of the land. But in time a truce is called and the Swallows and Amazons become firm friends. Camping under open skies, swimming in clear water, fishing, exploring and making discoveries is the stuff of dreams which serves to make this so charming a tale. The author manages to capture the innocence of a time when all this was real and possible. Swallows and Amazons will transport children to a fantastical place where they can play safely and roam freely, without an adult in sight.

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K Jerome

Published in 1889 this is a humorous account of a boating holiday on the Thames between Kingston and Oxford. The book was initially intended to be a serious travel guide with accounts of local history along the route, but the humorous elements took over to the point where the serious and somewhat sentimental passages seem a distraction to the comic novel. One of the most praised things about Three men in a Boat is how undated it appears to modern readers. The jokes seem fresh and witty even today.

The three men are based on Jerome himself (the narrator J.) and two real-life friends, George Wingrave (who would become a senior manager in Barclay’s Bank) and Carl Hentscehl (the founder of a London printing business, called Harris in the book), with whom he often took boating trips. The dog Montmorency, is entirely fictional but as Jerome admits, "developed out of that area of inner consciousness which, in all Englishmen contains an element of the dog." The trip is a typical boating holiday on the time in a Thames camping skiff. This was just after commercial boat traffic on the Upper Thames had died out, replaced by the 1880's craze for boating as a leisure activity.

A Quick Look Back - Laurie Lee and Slad

In the not so sunny summer of 2011 we read and fell in love with Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee. So much so that some of us even went on a pilgrimage to Laurie Lee's home village of Slad and visited some of the places in the book.

This afternoon I had a lovely surprise, while driving home from a business meeting, as Radio 4's Open Country broadcast their visit to Slad. It was a lovely programme so I thought I would share the listen again link, which also has some lovely photographs.

Click here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039d4bq

And as I have it on my radar to try and add some of our older reviews to this blog, here is our review from our meeting back in August 2011.

Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee - August 2011

Our discussion began with total agreement that this was a very enjoyable book that was so beautifully written it was poetry.

Though almost in living memory the world of Laurie Lee was so different to our own and was written at a time when rural life was changing. Most striking was the references to noise: it seems that from arriving in a silent place the noise grew as Laurie did.

The prose masks a hard life and did not shock or horrify as other tales of the time could (and would have done). Stories of bringing up other people’s children alone, murder, dying in the workhouse, suicide, hunger, cold, terrible accident are all presented, with an underlying beauty, by a poet with a rose tinted childhood memory. In fact despite the harsh reality the stories make you laugh out loud - often.

We drew alignment to our last book – Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson – in the fact that Laurie Lee is writing from memory about personal experience and passion. Events were muddled in time and embellished as he does, or would wish to, remember things.

Our discussion (far lengthier than our notes here suggest) let on to how life in Ashendon would have been during Laurie Lee's childhood, when many of the houses were tiny cottages with large families and farm work was the main employment. Much like Slad we thought, so we ended our chat with an idea that we should perhaps have a Book Group outing to Slad.