 Hello everybody, E here, welcome back to another book review right off the bat. I gotta tell you guys that this book was sent to me for review compliments of the publisher Atria Publishing, but the book is Things My Son Needs to Know About the World by Frederick Backman. Backman, I don't know, we're just gonna jump right into the review. I have loved Frederick Backman's work. I have hated his work. I love Beartown, couldn't stand us against them, us against you, can't remember, can't be bothered. And I was kinda in the middle with a man called Ova, Ova, whatever his name is. But this one I absolutely fell in love with. This is a, I believe it's supposed to be completely non-fiction, even though some of the stories in here seem to be exaggerated for a comedic benefit, but that doesn't take away from the enjoyment of the book. I laughed throughout the entire book and I do not feel, in my heart of hearts, I do not believe that you have to be a parent to enjoy this book. It may be even funnier if you have been through some of these things, but just know that you don't have to be a parent. You especially don't have to be a father to find this stuff funny, because I read much of this book out aloud. I read this book to my wife, Shell, and she was chuckling as well. I even let Dan read, not read some, but I even read some of it to Dan, and Dan thought it was quite funny. That's my oldest. He's 14, and there's Chris is 7, but Chris didn't really get any of it. But this book is hilarious. There's a recipe in here for fried Snickers ice cream, not fried Snickers bars or fried ice cream Snickers bars, but it's the ice cream with pieces of Snickers in. He fries that. So there's funny stuff like that throughout the book. I want to go ahead and I want to try and find, there's also quite a bit of poignant stuff in here, a lot of quotes in here that meant the world to me. There was a lot of stuff in here that is meaningful, especially now when we're all going through the BS with politics and religion and all that stuff. It kind of gives you another perspective that's not really a centrist view, but it's a neutral view that I smiled at. There's a lot of quotable content in this book, but we're going to talk about, let's see here. First we're going to talk about page 55 and 54. It looks like, if I can find the actual page numbers here, some of the pages don't have numbers on them. This one I especially liked, I'm just going to read this whole section to you. So bear with me. Sometimes we have to get rid of stuff to make room for new stuff. And then we start to miss the old stuff so much that we have to build new stuff that pretends to be the old stuff, talking about retro stuff and nostalgia and all that stuff. Like when we put TV screens on the treadmills at the gym and then play video games, sorry, and then play videos of trees on them so that we feel like we're running through the forest. Yes, I know what you're thinking. Why don't you just go running in the forest to begin with? And it's completely okay to wonder that. You don't know any better. You don't know, sorry, you don't know any better. But you see, we had to cut down the trees in the forest in order to build a highway so we could drive our cars to the gym. And yes, I can already see what you're thinking, why did you have to cut down the trees? But hey, what did you want us to do? They were standing in the middle of the highway. This thing like that is really, really funny. It's almost like a very clean version of George Carlin's old standup. But like I said, throughout the comedy and the absolutely hilarious scenes like On the Elevator is one of my favorite scenes in the book. If you read this book, you automatically know what I'm talking about. That's also one of those scenes that's kind of exaggerated. I feel for comedic benefit, but that did not reduce my enjoyment of those scenes. We are going to go now to 41 and then 42 and try to do it in Swedish. No, no, don't do that. Sorry. Okay. See, I don't want to be the dad all the other kids shake their heads at. The one who doesn't fit in among the rest of the parents. Someone you're ashamed of. This is him talking to his son. The one who doesn't understand the thing you love, the one who disappoints you. I know soccer. I don't know much about much, I'm sorry, I don't know much about much else. But I know soccer. I barely know anything about art or fashion or literature or computers or building a roof or changing the oil. I know very little about music. I'm not always great about talking about feelings. There's just, there's so much in this book and I think there's a, let's see here. Oh, the one criticism. I could go on and quote this book all day long, but I kind of want to steer myself away from that. The one criticism I have is Frederick Backman does so much writing. He has so many books out and not once does he talk about his writing in this book. And I know it's not really a memoir, but it's about the time when they were pregnant with his son and then afterwards, you know, after the baby came, I think it goes up to a year and a half in the baby's life. Well, I wanted some more insight into, you know, how he was able to continue writing during that time. Because I know from my own experience it was very difficult to, you know, get your rest, get your sleep and take care of the child all at the same time. So I would have liked to see more of that, but otherwise this book is perfect. I gave it a easy five stars. It is hilarious throughout. If you need a shining light in this dark world, if you want to have some fun and shut off your brain for 190 pages, I definitely, definitely recommend this book, whether you're a parent or not. But if you read the things my son needs to know about the world, if you have, let me know whether you liked it or disliked it down there in the doobly-doo. Let me know why you liked it, especially, and especially, let me know why you didn't like it. Let me know your complaints, down, all that stuff down there in the doobly-doo. But until next time, I have been Ian, you have been Ian, this has been another book review. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye-bye!