A Man Called Ove

by Fredrik Backman

Ove’s wife sometimes jokes that the three worst words Ove knows in this life are ‘Batteries not included’. People usually laugh when she says that. But Ove does not usually laugh.

He was a man of black and white. And she was colour. All the colour he had.

You miss the strangest things when you lose someone. Little things. Smiles. The way she turned round in her sleep. Even repainting a room for her.

It’s a strange thing, becoming an orphan at sixteen. To lose your family long before you’ve had time to create your own to replace it. It’s a very specific sort of loneliness.

‘Men are what they are because of what they do. Not what they say,’ said Ove.