Home and Away – Frederik Ekelund Knopf Canada

From the always astonishing Karl Ove Knausgaard–a brilliantly unusual book to delight both reading sports fans and the literary world. Bridging the two worlds of soccer and great writing, in the tradition of Lewis’s Moneyball, Hornby’s Fever Pitch or Buford’s Among the Thugs, Knausgaard provides us with a die-hard fan’s impassioned, personal, quirky, entertaining musings on that fundamental relationship between sports and life.

I remember every single World Cup starting with the one in 1978, what I was doing, how I was living, who I was, and the world in which it took place. But I have always just watched them on TV, never in reality, and I want it to stay that way–so that´s the starting point for this book, isn’t it? Life against death, yes against no, Brazil against Argentina.

     Karl Ove is sitting at home in Sweden watching the World Cup on TV (and falling asleep), with his wife, four small children and the dog; his good pal Fredrik is away in Brazil, playing beautiful football on the beach and watching the match. In this lively, argumentative, unique long-form email correspondence between them, written back and forth across the world, what begins as musings on the famous 2014 World Cup becomes (naturally) an exploration of the essential questions of life, with soccer as the catalyst for an inspiringly entertaining exchange of thoughts and ideas encompassing everything from the elusive nature of personal happiness, competitiveness, politics, insider knowledge about international football, art and literature, all rivetingly dissected with brilliance, verve and humour.