Юнас Юнассон - The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man

On the whole, the world was a better place than it had been a hundred years earlier, even if progress didn’t seem to happen in a straight line. It went up and down in cycles.

As far as Allan could tell, it was currently on the way down. The risk was that it wouldn’t turn up again before a sufficient number of people, for a sufficient amount of time, did sufficiently awful things to each other. After that people would start thinking again.

It had always been this way. But was it so very certain that it would be this way again? Researchers had just announced that the average level of intelligence was in a downturn. Allan read that people who spent too much time with their black tablets lost the ability to have a conversation. The thing about the tablet was that it tended to talk at its owner more than with them. As a result, people were going all over the internet and letting others think for them to the extent that they were on their way to becoming stupid.

Allan was concerned when he realized that truth was losing ground along with intelligence. It used to be easy to know what was true and what wasn’t. Vodka was good. Two plus two was not five.

But since people weren’t talking to each other any more, it ended up that whoever said the same thing the most times won. Some had refined this talent to the point of repeating themselves several times in the course of a few seconds. In the course of a few seconds.

What concerned Allan most of all, however, was that he realized he was concerned. Everything was the way it was. Couldn’t it just turn out the way it turned out, without a whole lot of hassle along the way?

Sabine happened along and noticed that the old man had put down his black tablet. He was sitting with his arms crossed and gazing across the savannah with an empty expression. ‘What are you thinking about, Allan?’ she asked.

‘Too much,’ said Allan. ‘Far too much.’

Senior Editor Sofia Brattselius Thunfors for being smart as a whip.

Editor Anna Hirvi Sigurdsson for being the same.

Colleague Mattias Boström for doing research like no one else.

Agent Carina Brandt for spreading my work all over the world.

Good friend Lars Rixon for reading, hmming, and liking.

Uncle Hans Isaksson for reading, hmming, and liking in secret.

Asparagus expert Margareta Hoas at Lilla Bjers for valuable knowledge, decently misrepresented by the author.

Cultural genius Felix Herngren for being the person he is and for inspiration for the story.

Thanks also to:

The princess, Jonatan, and Mom. Just like that.

IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO START AGAIN.

AND AGAIN.

Hitman Anders is fresh out of prison and determined not to go back. He meets a female Protestant vicar and a receptionist from a 1-star hotel and together they cook up a very unusual business idea – but then when Anders unexpectedly finds God, the vicar and the receptionist have to find a new plan, quick…

As wildly funny and unexpected as The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared and The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden , this is a madcap, feel-good adventure about belief, the media – and the fact that it’s never too late to start again.

JUST BECAUSE THE WORLD IGNORES YOU

DOESN’T MEAN YOU CAN’T SAVE IT

Nombeko Mayeki was never meant to be a hero. Born in a Soweto shack, she seemed destined for a short, hard life. But now she is on the run from the world’s most ruthless secret service, with three Chinese sisters, twins who are officially one person and an elderly potato farmer. Oh, and the fate of the King of Sweden – and the world – rests on her shoulders.

As uproariously funny as Jonas Jonasson’s bestselling debut, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, this is an entrancing tale of luck, love and international relations.

YOU’RE NEVER TOO OLD FOR AN ADVENTURE…

Sitting quietly in his room in an old people’s home, Allan Karlsson is waiting for a party he doesn’t want to begin. His one-hundredth birthday party to be precise. The Mayor will be there. The press will be there. But, as it turns out, Allan will not…

Escaping (in his slippers) through his bedroom window, into the flowerbed, Allan makes his getaway. And so begins his picaresque and unlikely journey involving criminals, several murders, a suitcase full of cash and incompetent police. As his escapades unfold, Allan’s earlier life is revealed. A life in which – remarkably – he played a key role behind the scenes in some of the momentous events of the twentieth century.

‘Imaginative, laugh-out-loud bestseller.’

JONAS JONASSONis the author of the international bestseller The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, now a major motion picture. Prior to his success as a novelist, Jonas was a journalist for the Swedish newspaper Expressen for many years, and later became a media consultant and founded a production company specializing in sporting events for Swedish television, which he sold before moving abroad to work on his first novel. He is the author of the internationally successful novels The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden and Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All . He lives on the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea.

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The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man

Copyright © Jonas Jonasson 2018, first published by Piratförlaget, Sweden, and upon agreement with Brandt New Agency

Translation copyright © Rachel Willson-Broyles 2018

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

First published in Canada by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd in an original trade paperback edition: 2018

EPub Edition: August 2018 EPub ISBN: 978-1-44345-556-5