Fredrik Backman is my (relatively new) favorite author in fiction. I read his book for the first time last year, and since then, I periodically come back to read his books. I mean, he writes a lot of books. They are in my TBR list, and I read them one at a time.

So, after a few months away from reading Fredrik Backman’s books, a recommendation for short read books showed up on my bookstagram algorithm, one of them is Things My Son Needs to Know About the World, and it pulled me right back in to Backman’s book. I’d been missing his writing, so the timing felt perfect to pick up another one of his books. The funny part is that I had no clue I was about to read a nonfiction. All this time, I thought Backman only write fiction books. So, there’s a special little thrill in finding out a favorite literary fiction author has written nonfiction too, the same way I felt when I discovered Elif Shafak, my another favorite author, had a nonfiction book, Black Milk, on her shelf.

Just like all of Backman books I’ve read, this one carries his signature way of telling the world exactly what he wants to say, all wrapped up in that genius style and those seamless jumps from one topic to the next. He’ll start with something small and almost silly, and before you’ve caught your breath, he’s swept you into one of the biggest questions in life and somehow it all happens in a single stretch. Then there’s my favorite part of his writing: the wit and the wisdom, folded together into touching, beautiful sentences that land on you all at once.

Things My Son Needs to Know About the World turns out to be so much more than a stack of letters to his son. You’ll also stumble onto recipes, little conversations with his wife and his friends, and the behind-the-scenes reality of what raising a child actually looks like.

The chapter that touched me most is the one about equality. It is said you shouldn’t think of the push for equality as men against women. A woman deserving all the same chances doesn’t mean you stop being decent and holding the door for her.

Never misinterpret the fight for equality as a war between the sexes. That you’ll never believe that a woman doesn’t deserve the same rights or freedoms or chances that you do. I hope you’ll know that, above all, most people are not looking for special treatment, most people don’t want everything to be the same for everyone, most people just want things to be FAIR for everyone. I hope you’ll get that, way faster than I did. And I hope that you’ll never get it into your head that just because a woman deserves every opportunity you do, you have to stop holding the door open for her when you can. That you’ll never think it’s impossible to be equals and behave like a gentleman at the same time.

Fredrik Backman, Things My Son Needs to Know About the World

Things My Son Needs to Know About the World is one more piece of proof that Backman has never let me down.

My Favorite Bits

• People sometimes ask me how I lived before I met your mother. I answer that I didn’t.

• So play. Learn. Grow up. Follow your passions. Find someone to love. Do your best. Be kind when you can, tough when you need to be.

• I want you to always remember that you can become whatever you want to become, but that’s nowhere near as important as knowing that you can be exactly who you are.

• People used to shout, “stand up like a real man,” in every possible context when I was a teenager. It took me a good few years into my twenties to realize that real men can also stay seated, shut up, and listen. And admit when they’re wrong.

---

Author: Fredrik Backman
Publication date: 208 pages
Number of pages: 27 August 2012

---