Brown Bag Book Discussion

Mary Greenan will lead a discussion of Jonas Jonasson's international bestseller The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared. Participants are encouraged (but not required) to read the book in advance. Ask for a copy at the library’s information desk.

From Publisher's Weekly

Jonasson’s laugh-out-loud debut (a bestseller in Europe) reaches the  U.S. three years after its Swedish publication. The intricately plotted saga of Allan Karlsson begins when he escapes his retirement home on his 100th birthday by climbing out his bedroom window.

After stealing a young punk’s money-filled suitcase, he embarks on a wild adventure, and through a combination of wits, luck, and circumstance, ends up on the lam from both a smalltime criminal syndicate and the police. Jonasson moves deftly through Karlsson’s life—from present to past and back again—recounting the fugitive centenarian’s career as a demolitions expert and the myriad critical junctures of history, including the Spanish Civil War and the  Manhattan Project, wherein Karlsson found himself an unwitting (and often influential) participant.

Historical figures like Mao’s third wife, Vice President Truman, and  Stalin appear, to great comic effect. Other characters—most notably Albert Einstein’s hapless half-brother—are cleverly spun into the raucous yarn, and all help drive this gentle lampoon of procedurals and thrillers.