“What about the sleeper books? The ones without ad campaigns and NPR coverage? The ones nobody knows they want until you put it in their hands? It’s been just over a year since the English translation of The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared came out and we’ve sold 88 copies of this staff favorite. That’s more than we sell of many ‘blockbusters.’ That’s the power of a staff pick, a shelf-talker, and the hand-sell. Then our customers fall in love with it and the word of mouth begins and copies get passed around and we keep selling 2 or 3 a week.
“This debut Swedish novel tells the story of Allan Karlsson who can’t think of a worse place to celebrate his 100th birthday than his nursing home. So he puts on his ‘pee slippers’ and exits via his window, accidentally steals a suitcase full of cash from a drug dealer, and ends up on a cross-country dash chased by gangsters and the police, while picking up accomplices and an elephant! This narrative is interrupted by his backstory: a Forrest Gumpian life filled with adventure that often placed him in pivotal moments of history. He saved General Franco’s life, spent time in Stalin’s Gulag after insulting him at a dinner, and crossed the Himalayas twice among many other exploits.”
—Jamie Schildknecht at Rediscovered Books, Boise, ID
Whether you climb out a window or go through a door, get out of your house to get this book at Rediscovered Books or just order it from them online and have it delivered or in ebook version so you don’t have to worry about means of egress at all.