WPL's adult book club will meet on Monday, March 31 at
6:30pm for a discussion of Anxious People by Fredrick Backman.
Selected to meet the 2025 Reading Challenge topic "a book set in
another country," Anxious People is a charming novel about a
crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin
air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than
they imagined. Set in an unidentified Swedish town, Anxious People is
a 2019 bestseller by the author of A Man Called Ove.
More from the publisher:
Looking at real estate isn't usually a life-or-death
situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank
robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a
recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers to avoid the
painful truth that they can't fix up their own marriage. There's a wealthy
banker who has been too busy making money to care about anyone else and a young
couple who are about to have their first child but can't seem to agree on
anything, from where they want to live to how they met in the first place. Add
to the mix an eighty-seven-year-old woman who has lived long enough not to be
afraid of someone waving a gun in her face, a flustered but
still-ready-to-make-a-deal real estate agent, and a mystery man who has locked
himself in the apartment's only bathroom, and you've got the worst group of
hostages in the world.
Each of them carries a lifetime of grievances, hurts, secrets, and passions
that are ready to boil over. None of them is entirely who they appear to be.
And all of them—the bank robber included—desperately crave some sort of rescue.
As the authorities and the media surround the premises, these reluctant allies
will reveal surprising truths about themselves and set in a motion a chain of
events so unexpected that even they can hardly explain what happens next.
Humorous, compassionate, and wise, Anxious People is an ingeniously
constructed story about the enduring power of friendship, forgiveness, and
hope—the things that save us, even in the most anxious of times.
