The international phenomenon: quirky and bittersweet, heartbreaking yet outrageously funny. Perfect for fans of Rachel Joyce’s The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and Jonas Jonasson’s The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of a Window and Disappeared.The word-of-mouth bestseller causing a sensation across Europe, Fredrik Backman’s heartwarming debut is a funny, moving, uplifting tale of love and community that will leave you with a spring in your step.’Warm, funny, and almost unbearably moving’ Daily Mail’Rescued all those men who constantly mean to read novels but never get round to it’ Spectator Books of the YearAt first sight, Ove is almost certainly the grumpiest man you will ever meet. He thinks himself surrounded by idiots — neighbours who can’t reverse a trailer properly, joggers, shop assistants who talk in code, and the perpetrators of the vicious coup d’etat that ousted him as Chairman of the Residents’ Association. He will persist in making his daily inspection rounds of the local streets.But isn’t it rare, these days, to find such old-fashioned clarity of belief and deed? Such unswerving conviction about what the world should be, and a lifelong dedication to making it just so?In the end, you will see, there is something about Ove that is quite irresistible…There is something about Ove.At first sight, he is almost certainly the grumpiest man you will ever meet. He thinks himself surrounded by idiots — neighbours who can’t reverse a trailer properly, joggers, shop assistants who talk in code, and the perpetrators of the vicious coup d’etat that ousted him as Chairman of the Residents’ Association. He will persist in making his daily inspection rounds of the local streets.But isn’t it rare, these days, to find such old-fashioned clarity of belief and deed? Such unswerving conviction about what the world should be, and a lifelong dedication to making it just so?In the end, you will see, there is something about Ove that is quite irresistible…The word-of-mouth bestseller causing a sensation across Europe, Fredrik Backman’s heartwarming debut is a funny, moving, uplifting tale of love and community that will leave you with a spring in your step — and less ready to judge on first impressions a man you might one day wish to have as your dearest friend.

The Hachette Essentials series comprises a collection of titles that are regarded as modern classics. A carefully and lovingly curated selection of distinctive, ground-breaking fiction and non-fiction titles published since 1950. Timeless. Relevant. Passionate. Unified as a series — distinctive as books. A good book is great. A great book is essential.Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies . . .Six interlocking lives — one amazing adventure. In a narrative that circles the globe and reaches from the 19th century to a post-apocalyptic future, Cloud Atlas erases the boundaries of time, genre and language to offer an enthralling vision of humanity’s will to power, and where it will lead us.