


Because I wouldn’t have written it so well myself. But on the contrary, I am glad relieved, to be completely honest. You would have expected me to be upset because I didn’t get to write it after all. Now you can imagine why I couldn’t stop reading this book. As it turns out, that idea was written after all. Do you remember I said, I had an idea of a story that I wanted to write and didn’t? Well, of course, you do, because I said it in the previous paragraph. It’s like when you make a new friend and start spending more time with them and your older friends suddenly start feeling jealous. I wasn’t supposed to do this yet, because I had at least three unfinished books glaring at me from the bookshelf. A mystery was set, from the very first page. For me, the first page determines it all. When the book arrived, it was called Anxious People, by the way, I read the first page. For no particular reason really, except that I loved the title because I could relate to it. Then a few days back, I ordered a random book on the internet.

I once read somewhere on a writing motivation blog, ‘If you want to read a story and it hasn’t been written yet, then you should write it.’ I pined to write a story, or rather an idea of a story (because I was too lazy to develop it), for a long time. And that’s how this reading challenge started.Īnxious People by Fredrik Backman Book Cover. So, one day like the protagonist in your favorite book, I had an epiphany. That’s how badly I was addicted to my phone. As an adult, my bookshelf expanded, so did the books in there, but hardly 10% of them had I read, even once. As a child, my bookshelf was small and contained few books that I read and reread because I never felt enough. Despite all that, when technology grew at the same pace that I did from a child to an adult, I changed. Books made me feel at home at times when that has hardly possible. Or maybe when I realized I can know everything about the people in books unlike those from the real world. Maybe I fell in love with reading when I realized the fictional world is a lot more exciting than the real world. Comics, storybooks, short stories, novels, … It began with my parents and grandparents narrating them to help me fall asleep, to the very same people popping up with books as presents for every other special occasion in my life. Because, the wise opine, ‘There are no bad books only bad readers.’ I always had a thing for stories. And no one sets the standards as to what books can be deemed as good. You can be a lousy writer and yet also be an exceptional reader. That’s the reason why writers are by definition, good readers.

If you enjoy expressing yourself in the written word, it implies that you have something special for the written word. This book is an ideal companion for your travels, or simply even for a weekend read. Anxious People is a fascinating work of fiction by the popular Swedish author, Fredrik Backman.
