Red Széll

He loathes the fact that people in electronic shops seem to speak in riddles and he has never forgiven his neighbour and former friend Runa for abusing.

organising a coup to get him kicked out from being chair of the Residence Committee.

And frankly, he's isolated himself and he's thinking of ending it all.

And his attempts to end it all are thwarted by his new neighbour, a woman who was brought up in Iran...

I think, if I remember correctly, and her two young daughters, who is married to a fairly useless husband and recognises that Ove is actually rather good with his tools, his hands.

You know, he can put up a shelf and open a window.

And then he just discovers more and more connections within his community.

And that softens his sort of hard carapace that he's developed around himself.

And you begin to see him integrating back into the community that

he's been part of throughout his life and soften the edges around him and rediscover why it's worth living.

And also you understand why he's become the man that he's become.

And it's a heartwarming and heartbreaking book.

And I wept buckets and I laughed like a drain whilst I was reading this book.

I think maybe, you know, I'm a man in my 50s.

Maybe I've become a bit of a grumpy old man.

I believe that things were better back in the 1990s.

But it just it really struck a chord with me.

And I think it's one of the nicest books I've read for a long time.

It's a book about second chances, isn't it?

Exactly, yes.