When they are toddlers, we call them "fussy". Disgruntled teens are infamous. And adulthood brings it's own traumas. Finally, we have the lovable curmudgeons - still fussy, still disgruntled, with a quite intractable attitude that is deemed antisocial. As I've learned, there is a special day to celebrate those unique, cranky individuals and that day is today! Authors seem to love to create characters that snipe at one another, wreak havoc, and then, miraculously transform into loving, understanding people. Sometimes that happens in real life, but more often their curmudgeonly ways are set in stone! However, when reading fiction, readers love a transformation. Most of the books on my list handle the transformation with humor and charm, such as Britt-Marie Was here by Fredrik Bachman or Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. Others are more dark and enigmatic, like Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (a Pulitzer Prize winner too!) During this time of the pandemic, it might ease ones own bad mood to read about characters that are ill-tempered or easily annoyed - and for that reason, I choose to celebrate the curmudgeons of the world! I will always attempt to face you with a smile!
The 100-year-old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared / Jonas Jonasson. A reluctant centenarian much like Forrest Gump (if Gump were an explosives expert with a fondness for vodka) decides it’s not too late to start over...
Britt-Marie Was Here : a novel / Fredrik Backman. Britt-Marie can’t stand mess. She is not one to judge others—no matter how ill-mannered, unkempt, or morally suspect they might be. It’s just that sometimes people interpret her helpful suggestions as criticisms, which is certainly not her intention. But hidden inside the socially awkward, fussy busybody is a woman who has more imagination, bigger dreams, and a warmer heart that anyone around her realizes.
An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good / Helene Tursten. Our hero, or shall we say “anti-hero,” Maud keeps her neighbors on their toes. And they better not underestimate the 88-year-old star of these short stories. The fun in these stories is being allowed to root for the underdog—even if she’s sly.
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine / Gail Honeyman. The novel focuses on 29-year-old Eleanor Oliphant, a social misfit with a traumatic past who becomes enamored of a singer, whom she believes she is destined to be with.
Faith Bass Darling's Last Garage Sale / Lynda Rutledge. On the last day of the millennium, sassy Faith Bass Darling, the richest old lady in Bass, Texas, decides to have a garage sale. Faith lugs her priceless Louis XV elephant clock, countless Tiffany lamps, and everything else from her nineteenth-century mansion out onto her long, sloping lawn. Why is a recluse of twenty years suddenly selling off her dearest possessions? Because God told her to.
Florence Gordon / Brian Morton. Meet Florence Gordon: blunt, brilliant, cantankerous and passionate, feminist icon to young women, invisible and underappreciated by most everyone else. At seventy-five, Florence has earned her right to set down the burdens of family and work and shape her legacy at long last. But just as she is beginning to write her long-deferred memoir, her son Daniel returns to New York from Seattle with his wife and daughter, and they embroil Florence in their dramas...
The History of Love / Nicole Krauss. Leo Gursky is trying to survive a little bit longer, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he’s still alive, drawing attention to himself at the milk counter of Starbucks. But life wasn’t always like this...
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand : a novel / Helen Simonson. The Major leads a quiet life valuing the proper things that Englishmen have lived by for generations: honor, duty, decorum, and a properly brewed cup of tea. But then his brother's death sparks an unexpected friendship with Mrs. Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper from the village. Can their relationship survive the risks one takes when pursuing happiness in the face of culture and tradition?
A Man Called Ove : a novel / by Fredrik Backman. Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.”
Olive Kitteridge / Elizabeth Strout. At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn't always recognize the changes in those around her.
Our Souls at Night / Kent Haruf. A spare yet eloquent, bittersweet yet inspiring story of a man and a woman who, in advanced age, come together to wrestle with the events of their lives and their hopes for the imminent future.
An Unnecessary Woman / Rabih Alameddine. This novel focuses on the experiences of an isolated 72-year-old woman, Aaliya Saleh, who is a shut-in in Beirut, exploring how she deals with her changing life.