When You Feel Like You Want to Climb Out a Window and Disappear

Just don’t do it.  Read this book instead.

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared  by Jonas Jonasson

Well, I’ve done it again – chosen a book based solely on its cover.  But what a find this one turned out to be!  The title made me smile, and the story made me laugh out loud.  If you like adventure and dry, deadpan humor, this is a book I highly recommend.  It’s the tale of a man who has had a long and eventful life and although he has slowed down considerably at the age of one hundred, he still has an escapade or two left in him.

Through the present hilarious romp, we’re doubly entertained by flash backs to his lifetime of one unbelievable adventure after another, in which he is thrown together with very important people all over the world.  Allan Karlsson never goes looking for excitement or trouble, but it always manages to find him.  He is delightfully unassuming, matter of fact, down to earth, polite, helpful, non political, non religious, and completely accepting of whatever fate hands him.  Well, up to a point.  He is also adept at wriggling his way out of difficult situations when the need arises.

It’s an oddball, funny story, like reading about a Swedish Forest Gump, with lots of history and world events woven into it.  Apparently you’re never too old to have some fun.  Why not pick up a feel-good book that makes you laugh?  May we all have such great adventures and live to be one hundred.  Or die trying.