#48 My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman

Swedish author Fredrik Backman is a master storyteller. His novels, full of idiosyncratic characters and expertly-crafted dialogue, are heartwarming and entertaining, hypnotizing and transporting.

Where A Man Called Ove, which I read and loved back in January, centers on old cantankerous Ove and his fraught relationship with the world, the main character in My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry is Elsa, age 7. Her best and only friend is her quirky grandmother who weaves a world of fairy tales for Elsa, regularly stirs up trouble, and who dies suddenly leaving Elsa a task: to deliver apology letters to the folks she’s wronged and left behind. Backman’s characters  leap off the page, they come to life fully flawed and perfectly odd, in a wonderful story that is funny and poignant, and rich with imagination. Another great read.