The 100-Year-Old Man

It's been a good week for reading around here (you know, one where the temperature is only cold enough for snow on the days you're not expecting precipitation - ugh), and the last book I read was a winner:  The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared. (Don't you feel tired just reading that?)

The title sums up the premise of this book fairly well. On the day Allan turns 100, he decides to escape from his nursing home by climbing out the window. From there, he steals a suitcase, begins working with a thief, and befriends a woman with a pet elephant, among other things. Chapters alternate between his current adventures and a retelling of his life - also full of crazy antics. Of course, you have to be willing to forgive slight twists on many important events, like when Allan befriends Harry Truman (it's unfortunate that I read this right after Bomb, and knew how much was fabricated).

One thing to note - this book was translated from Swedish, leading to some quirky word choice and a lack of quotation marks when people talk. A line of dialogue begins with -- . (I googled it and found that's the traditional way to set off dialogue in Sweden, but I thought it was worth mentioning since it threw me off at first.)

Overall, I loved it. This book is outrageous, hilarious, and very entertaining. Just the way the author phrases the most mundane details put a smile on my face. Like this:

--Are you really one hundred years old? he asked. In that case, you must be hungry.

Or this: 

In almost twenty years as an entrepreneur in the robbery business, he had only had a couple of short involuntary vacations.

You should read it!

Have you read anything good lately?