The One Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared (Jonas Jonasson)

This was a very cute book. I loved the absurd humor and the cast of characters, many of whom you'll recognize from history 101; Churchill, various prime ministers, Stalin, Einsteins retarded brother Herbert, Truman, etc. the North Korean leader guy, Kim something. I'm horrible with history as you can tell. So we have this book written by this Swedish Journalist and it's wonderful. It's a riveting tale about a guy named Allen who is 100 years old on the day when he decides to slip out the window of the nursing home. He does not want to celebrate his life. He in fact feels it is his time to leave the world. So in this mind state he goes to the train station with nothing but the clothes on his back and slippers. It didn't seem important at the time to have shoes. Also unimportant is the fact that he decides to take a suitcase belonging to another man whom we learn is a thug and this thug asks him to keep an eye it while he goes to take a dump. Allen takes it for fun and the adventure begins. What is inside the suitcase is a case load of some obscene number of crowns and the reader gets treated to the people Allen meets on the way to wherever it is that Allen is heading. He doesn't really know but that's not important either. What is important is Allen's life story that we get to know as it is alternated between the present time; he's on the run from the police with a local thief, a hotdog stand operator who also have like 50 unfinished degrees, a woman with an elephant and the head of a gang- and Allens past. How he was involved with explosives as a kid. How he blew up his house (twice) how he came upon learning how to build a nuclear bomb, how he worked for Stalin. How he had dinner with president Truman and a whole host of slightly altered historical facts that put our protagonist at front and center. Really the book is silly. It reminded me of the lovechild of : Monty Python, Mr. Bean, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and John Irving. I have to say the ending was slightly off but not so much that it made it bad or anything. I really liked it.