Plano Reads: Second Tuesday Book Club Starts the New Year January 11 with “Anxious People”

Happy New Year 2022! Second Tuesday Book Club will meet in-person from 7 to 8:15 p.m. on Tuesday, January 11, in the program room at Schimelpfenig Library, to begin our year of reading. We will observe careful social distancing, with face coverings recommended. Please email Cathe Spencer at cathes@plano.gov if you have questions or comments. See you at Schimelpfenig Library on Tuesday!

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

From the author of the bestseller A Man Called Ove and Beartown comes a new novel which People magazine calls “wholly original, quirky, big-hearted, wry, and wise.”

Taken hostage by a failed bank robber while attending an open house in an apartment near Stockholm, eight anxiety-prone strangers–including a redemption-seeking bank director, two couples who hope to repair their marriages, and a plucky octogenarian–discover that they have more in common than they could have ever imagined. Has a crime actually taken place? And what has become of the bank robber, who has inexplicably disappeared?

Anxious People is available in these formats at Plano Public Library: Print |eBook | eAudiobook

Writing in USA Today, Don Oldenburg comments that “nothing is what it seems: not the bank robber’s identity, or the toy gun that’s real, or the man in the bathroom wearing only underpants and a costume rabbit’s head… With Backman, as with life, there’s always a more compelling backstory, more heartbreaking and heartwarming secrets. He writes humorously and poignantly about life, marriage, parenthood, love and death, [and] reminds us we are all “idiots” because being human is “idiotically difficult.” Anxious People is about how kindness and compassion count so much in surviving each day – a lesson for our times.”

New York Times reviewer Elisabeth Egan notes that Backman found the idea for his new book when he began a search for a new apartment of his own, and took a close look at the people around him during an open house. “Anxiety is a theme, but the book is equal parts comedy, relationship drama and locked-room mystery…It’s also an accelerant in Backman’s own creative process.”

“You create your own universe that you can step into, where things make sense or where you can, in my case, try to put words onto a feeling,” Backman says. “That’s what I’m looking for when I write.”

Fredrik Backman lives in Stockholm with his wife and two children. He has written six bestselling novels, a novella, and nonfiction. His books have been published in more than forty countries. A Man Called Ove was made into a feature film in Sweden, and was nominated for an Academy Award in 2016.

Connect with him on Facebook and Twitter @BackmanLand or on Instagram @BackmanSK.

Anxious People is available as a limited series on Netflix. Season one has been filmed in Stockholm, in Swedish, and premiered on December 29, 2021.