If you have a tendency to be more of a passenger than a pilot in your life (relax; no-one is looking at YOU, Des!), you might need a lesson from the geriatric hero of Jonas Jonasson's "The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared".
Allan Karlsson has always lived his life lightly, with more curiosity than conviction, yet has somehow been instrumental in many of the key events of the twentieth century. On the eve of his one hundredth birthday party in the Malmköping Old People's Home, to which the press, the mayor, and varied guests have been invited, Allan decides that the home won't, after all, be his last residence on earth, and that he will die "some other time, in some other place". He is not only blithe, but lucky - one of the first things he does after escaping is land a suitcase full of money.
What follows is a retrospective romp through Allan's life, from his birth in 1905 to his new beginnings, at age one hundred and one, in Bali, with a younger woman (eighty-five) at his side. Over the course of his many years, we watch him create the atomic bomb and advise world leaders such as Winston Churchill and Mao Tse-tung. His adventures continue in the present, taking him and his suitcase, via several accidental murders (Allan doesn't have much cop with morality), to many glorious places.
Jonasson's message is clear. If you live within the internet catchment area of Hicksville and find yourself asking "Should I?" the answer is: "Yes, you should."
