Paperback Trade Fiction, Published: August 10, 2008

1. THE SHACK, by William P. Young. A man whose daughter was abducted is invited to an isolated shack, apparently by God.

2. WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, by Sara Gruen. A young man — and an elephant — save a Depression-era circus.

3. THE KITE RUNNER, by Khaled Hosseini. An Afghan-American returns to Kabul to learn how a childhood friend has fared under the Taliban.

4. BAREFOOT, by Elin Hilderbrand. Three women burdened by various problems (work, love, health) spend a transformative summer together on Nantucket.

5. THE ALCHEMIST, by Paulo Coelho. A Spanish shepherd boy travels to Egypt in search of treasure.

6. IN THE WOODS, by Tana French. An Irish detective investigating the murder of a 12-year-old girl returns to the woods where he experienced a terrible ordeal during his own childhood.

7. NINETEEN MINUTES, by Jodi Picoult. The aftermath of a high school shooting reveals the fault lines in a small New Hampshire town.

8. THE ROAD, by Cormac McCarthy. A father and son travel in post-apocalypse America.

9. LOVING FRANK, by Nancy Horan. A story of the romance between Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney, and the scandal that followed when they left behind spouses and children.

10. THE FRIDAY NIGHT KNITTING CLUB, by Kate Jacobs.  A group of women meet weekly at a New York City yarn shop.

11. MY SISTER’S KEEPER, by Jodi Picoult. A girl sues her parents after learning they want her to donate a kidney to her sibling.

12. THE LAST SUMMER (OF YOU AND ME), by Ann Brashares.  The bond between two sisters is tested by a romance with an old friend.

13. THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES, by Sue Monk Kidd. In South Carolina in 1964, a teenage girl tries to discover the secret to her mother’s past.

14. SECOND CHANCE, by Jane Green.A group of 30-something friends reconsider their lives after one of their number is killed in a terrorist attack.

15. THE MEMORY KEEPER’S DAUGHTER, by Kim Edwards. A doctor’s decision to secretly send his newborn daughter, who has Down syndrome, to an institution haunts everyone involved.

16. OUT STEALING HORSES, by Per Petterson.  In a remote cabin, a Norwegian man circles around his memories of the past.

17. THOSE WHO SAVE US, by Jenna Blum.  A professor of German history investigates what really went on in her mother’s life in Germany during World War II.

18. ON CHESIL BEACH, by Ian McEwan. A wedding night goes terribly wrong.

19. THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN’S UNION, by Michael Chabon. A detective investigates a murder in a Jewish settlement in Alaska.

20. TRUE TO THE GAME III, by Teri Woods. Gangsters, crooked cops and a vicious killer pursue Gena in this conclusion to the True to the Game trilogy.

21. THE GATHERING, by Anne Enright

22. THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH, by Ken Follett

23. MIDDLESEX, by Jeffrey Eugenides

24. THE GATECRASHER, by Madeleine Wickham

25. GHOSTWALK, by Rebecca Stott

26. THE GRAVEDIGGER’S DAUGHTER, by Joyce Carol Oates

27. ISLAND OF LOST GIRLS, by Jennifer McMahon

28. SOMETHING BORROWED, by Emily Giffin

29. AWAY, by Amy Bloom

30. REPLAY, by Ken Grimwood

31. BUDDHA, by Deepak Chopra

32. THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL, by Philippa Gregory

33. THE BOLEYN INHERITANCE, by Philippa Gregory

34. RANT, by Chuck Palahniuk

35. THE MAYTREES, by Annie Dillard

©2010 The World of Books. All Rights Reserved.

But then all those strange things started to happen. It won prizes and high praise, was translated to one language after the other, and won recognition both in Norway and lots of other countries. Of course, I noticed all of this, but I managed to distance myself from it all. For a long time. After all, what did foreigners and Americans know about horse thieves, or the lack thereof, in Norway? But then, to make things worse, my friends started telling me that this was a book I really had to read, a wonderful book, a pleasure to read. One of them even had the nerve to place the book right in my angle of sight. So, well, I decided I had to taste those sour grapes. That way I could at least tell everybody why I thought this book was bad, based on more than just the title.

Alas, that was not to be. After just a few pages I fell in love with the book. It all started, I think, with me smiling while reading. I even laughed. And I read passages out load for my friend. And I enjoyed the book, a lot. The book was not exactly as I had imagined.

Viewed from the outside the book is relatively straight forward. 67 year old Trond moves to a house by a lake in the forest, in the Eastern part of Norway. Here he lives alone with his dog, and spends his time with repairing the house and other small practical tasks. “All my life I have wanted to be alone in a place like this. Even when life was at its finest, as it has often been” (My translation from Norwegian). But things change for Trond. Meetings with the neighbor living in the cabin a little further down the road evoke difficult memories for Trond. Memories about his father, about the summer of 1948 when he was 15 years old, and about events taking place that summer which were hard to understand for a fifteen year old boy. We flash back and relive those events with Trond, and then we follow the consequences they have for the mature Trond 52 years later. The story is good, and it is told with great skill.

But it wasn’t only the story that made me love this book. It was actually mostly the language – that beautiful, slightly remote, and very moderate and crisp language that Petterson has chosen for his story. A form perfect for making those things – small and large – that happen in the book stand out on their own accord in my interpretation only. A style of language that delivers joyful, happy, sad, tragical as well as beautiful events and scenes to me in such a raw, unprocessed form that is makes me need and want to reflect and ponder their implications and interrelations, and more or less forces me to relate to what I read.

In addition, I loved all those cute, interesting, staggering and mind-blowing observations, thoughts and reflections about life, being, and nothingness made by Trond. About the trivia of daily life, life in general, the goings on in the world at large, where Trond’s particular point in life, situation, and context for interpretation on the one hand lends the story credibility and on the other hand provides a unique perspective that makes a lot of things take on meaning that differ a lot from more common meanings and interpretations. Lot of joy, lots of food for thought.

So, it may – that much I can maybe concede – have been a bad choice by me not to read the book earlier. But then, on the other hand, there is this beautiful thing about books – quite different from newspapers and tech-thingies – that makes it possible to read them a tad late and still enjoy. And this is art. A masterpiece actually. The value of art transcends time and place. Its value isn’t even reduced over time. So?

– Peter

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©2010 The World of Books. All Rights Reserved.