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    The Red Address Book
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    The Red Address Book
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    The Red Address Book
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Red Address Book

    Written by Sofia Lundberg

    Narrated by Anna Bentinck

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

    ‘Written with love, told with joy’ Fredrik Backman, author of A Man Called Ove

    ‘Wise and captivating’ People Magazine

    Within the pages of 96-year-old Doris’s red address book are the names of all those she has loved and lost, telling the story of a colourful life. Living alone in Stockholm, she is comforted by the weekly calls of her grand-niece Jenny, who is haunted by a painful childhood.

    Finally, Doris decides to put pen to paper, using her address book to recall the memories of a life well-lived – from 1930s Paris runways to narrow New York escapes during World War Two – and what she and Jenny discover may well change their lives forever…

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJan 24, 2019
    ISBN9780008277956
    Author

    Sofia Lundberg

    SOFIA LUNDBERG is a journalist and former magazine editor. Her debut novel, The Red Address Book, was published in thirty-two territories worldwide. She lives in Stockholm with her son.

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    Reviews for The Red Address Book

    4/5

    136 ratings26 reviews

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    • 4/5
      You know when you finish a book and you’re sitting there with teary eyes and you just hold the book in your hands... What a lovely story. I’m sad it had to end, but of course it did. A really enjoyable, lovable story of a Swedish nonagenarian whose passion throughout her life was writing and recording her memories. It was a treat to be able to go through her life all over the world with her. Expect tears and the happy kind of endings that also make you a little sad and cry.Thank you to the publishers for a chance to read this in advance.
    • 5/5
      Loved this style of this book.
    • 3/5
      Quick read. Some a characters a bit flat. Corny ending. But sweet story.
    • 4/5
      Doris is old and dying but she’s got things to share before she does. The frame story follows Doris’ last days but those days are interspersed with Doris’ memories of her life. It’s a lovely tale of hardships and love and unconventional family.
    • 5/5
      THE RED ADDRESS BOOKSofie LundbergI just finished the most amazing book! The Red Address Book by Sofia Lundberg takes place in pre-WWII Sweden and Paris and America and also post WWII in England and SwedenDoris received the red leather address book from her father on her 10th birthday. Her life completely changed not long after that. Sent to be a maid for a wealthy woman, Doris learns to keep quiet, do as she’s told and don’t question. When she is followed home on night by a man; the woman she is working for tells her she must go with him. Again, major changes in Doris’ life. Still she keeps up her address book and as she begins to age; she writes stories of all the folks entered. She has no one in Sweden now, just a niece in California that she Skypes with once a week. Doris’ health begins to fail when finally she falls and breaks a hip. This book is so lovingly written! I was Jenny (the niece)m Doris, Allan (Doris’ only love) and so many more characters. The descriptions of Paris were wonderful also those of her friends.You need to read this book! Keep tissues handy, but please read it!
    • 5/5
      Loved it. An elderly woman lives alone with her memories. Memories kick-started by entries in her address book, slowly but surely crossed out and marked DEAD over time. No one is left from her past. New York, Paris, Sweden.... WW2.......This is a love story based in Stockhom, where wires are crossed and time passes.....years pass. Yet Doris lives her independent life, at this point with interchangeable caretakers and her weekly skype with her grand-daughter. A fall lands her in the hospital...All i will say here is to have a tissue at hand, it's a sad....happy ending
    • 3/5
      2.5** From the book jacket: Meet Doris, a 96-year-old woman living alone in her Stockholm apartment. She has few visitors, but her weekly Skype calls with Jenny – her American grandniece, and her only relative – give her great joy and remind her of her own youth. When Doris was a girl, she was given an address book by her father, and ever since she has carefully documented everyone she met and loved throughout the years. Looking through the little book now, Doris sees the many crossed-out names of people long gone and is struck by the urge to put pen to paper. My reactions: I am so over the dual time-line device in historical fiction! Just tell the story. This seemed very disjointed, what with the drama occurring in present day – both Doris and Jenny have some serious problems – and the drama of her great lost love in the past, I just never felt connected to these characters or to the story. I wanted more of Gosta, the artist that Doris befriended and who came through for her when she most needed him. I felt that the love affair with Allan was rushed and not really fleshed out. Yes, I remember the passion of a youthful love affair, the way your emotions wipe everything else out of your consciousness; but this just seemed underdeveloped to me. I also thought the relationship with Jenny’s mother (Doris’s niece) was lacking depth. So, while I enjoyed reading about the modeling career in 1930s Paris, and the pluck and drive which took Doris across the ocean (twice), I was decidedly “meh” about the whole.
    • 4/5
      A very sweet book that kept me interested all the way through.
    • 3/5
      Good book club discussion!
    • 4/5
      A feel-good story that is a wonderful read!
    • 4/5
      This novel shares a similar theme with another book I'm reading - Miss Austen by Gill Hornby - but I found Sofia Lundberg's story easier to get through. Sappy, yes, and also very soapy, but great characters. Doris Alm, based on the author's aunt but solely by name and relation, I should imagine, is 96 years old and waiting to die alone in Stockholm. Her niece Jenny lives in America and they talk regularly by Skype, but Doris wants to pass on her memories and starts writing her memoirs for Jenny, based on the red address book of the title. Each chapter is headed by the name of a relative, friend or lover in Doris' life, amended with 'DEAD' when that person has passed on.I found the premise intriguing, but the narrative soon descended into Hallmark movie territory. Doris loses her father at a young age, her mother hands her over to a rich socialite to earn her way as a maid, the socialite moves her to Paris where Doris' incredible beauty wins over a famous artist and she then becomes a 'living mannequin', before meeting the love of her life, a wealthy American. who abandons her just as war breaks out, so Doris and her younger sister flee to the States to try and locate her lover after he sends her a letter - but too late! And the drama only steps up a notch when Doris decides she wants to head home to Europe. I kept reading, but my credulity was stretched to the limit, even for romantic fiction.On the other hand, Doris' relationship with her young niece Jenny - and even she has a traumatic story, with a drug-addled mother and a grandmother who died in childbirth - is heartwarming and comparatively realistic. I love that Jenny drops everything to fly to Stockholm and be with Doris in her last days, lugging a complacent toddler with her. And yes, I did well up at one point!A quick, light read that could have done with dialling back on the dramatic cliches slightly.
    • 4/5
      As I have been surrounding myself with organizing and archiving my family and my husband's family history I appreciate and enjoy stories like these. Filled with all the moments and connections that life presents us, how they impact us, how we move on, how we love, and how we survive. Sofia Lundberg does a wonderful job of walking us through the story of a woman, Doris, who has a strong, independent spirit. Doris reminisces about her life story through the people in her address book. As the story unfolds she connects with a niece and we find she wants to leave her niece with a sense of the value of life and love, no matter what the circumstances or regrets. Such a lovely reminder for all of us as we rarely take the time to reminisce because we are too busy with the Instagram or FB message about our current lives.

      I give this book 4 stars because it engaged me until the end, Doris was a lovable character, the story-telling through "address entries" either alive or dead was intriguing and her connection with her niece was refreshing and real. I almost gave it 3 stars because some of the relationships and journeys she took sometimes seem unreal - but isn't that sometimes the ride we take with a good fiction book?
    • 3/5
      To this day my family laughs about my paternal grandmother's address book. It was a baffling document for anyone but her. She didn't list people alphabetically by last name. Well, she did for some. She didn't alphabetize them by first name. Although, again, she did for some. She listed them under whatever letter of the alphabet made sense to her. So her brother was listed under B for brother. Her sister was under S for sister. My father was listed under R for Ronnie with all of our myriad of addresses crossed out and rewritten over the years. Her haphazard system, one that only she understood, made telling the important people in her life that she had passed away a big challenge. We were so busy marveling at the way she filed everything that we didn't stop to consider who the people we didn't recognize might be, and we especially didn't wonder at the crossed out people. Who they were and who they were to her would probably have been an interesting and different perspective on her life. Sofia Lundberg's novel, The Red Address Book, is a book based on that premise, that entries in an address book can tell the story of the owner's life.Doris is 96 years old and living alone in Stockholm. Care workers come in to help her periodically but they treat her as if she has regressed to childhood and have no interest in who she was in the past. She tolerates the workers but she lives for her weekly calls with her American great-niece Jenny, with whom she has never shared her past either. Jenny's life is busy and she can't find the time to visit her Aunt Doris until Doris falls and ends up in the hospital, slowly sinking. As Jenny faces her great-aunt's mortality, she finds it important to ask Doris about her past, to find out as much as she can about her beloved relative before she's gone and also about the things from Jenny's own past that she has never understood or known. In this she is aided by the red address book with so many of its entries crossed out and marked "DEAD."Woven through Doris' current day story and triggered by the entries in the beloved red address book her father gave her as a young girl is the story of her complicated past. From her early childhood and work as a maid to working as a model, from the disappeared love of her life to the tragedy of their family, from what the war took from her to what it eventually gave back, and the choice she made to return to Stockholm in her later life, the entries of the address book span it all. It is both the story of her life and the people in it as well as a visual representation of what it looks like to have lost so many important people as she comes to the end of her life. While the premise is wonderful and the story of Doris' past is interesting enough, it is a little too simplistic and the current day story has stilted dialogue and unrealistic, predictable outcomes. This should have been incredibly heartwarming but there was something about it that missed the mark, not evoking the emotions it clearly meant to. It is unclear whether this is a translation problem or if it's a story problem. In the end, I wanted to feel more, to connect more, to like this so much more than I did, after all, I already appreciate the personal value of an address book.
    • 4/5
      I'm a sucker for these books that feature an elderly character who decides to reflect back on their life. This one had a unique premise as a woman's address book was used to help tell the story. While this book had a bit of charm it also packed an emotional punch in ways I wasn't expecting.Ninety-six year old Doris doesn't have much contact with the outside world and therefore looks forward to her weekly Skype sessions with her grandniece, Jenny. Doris's father gave her an address book when she was a child and she decides to take a look at it while she writes down some of the moments that shaped her life. The story went in some directions I didn't see coming but it makes sense given just about everyone has hard moments in life. It felt like there was better focus in the first half or so of the book than the later chapters when in some ways it felt like the story shifted gears and turned into something else. I'm not saying I didn't like it, but I do wish there would have been more of a smooth transition. Overall though, you do end up falling in love with Doris as she is an easy character to feel emotionally invested in and I would definitely recommend this as a good read.I received a free arc of this book from BookishFirst and the publisher. I was under no obligation to post a review here and all views expressed are my honest opinion.
    • 4/5
      The Red Address Book by Sofia Lundberg. Doris is a 96 year old woman who is writing down all her memories about the people meant a great deal to her in life. She is going through her red address book where she has crossed out almost everyone’s name because they have died. Doris spends her days in her lonely, quiet and dark Sweden apartment sorting through her memories. “There are certain memories you just can’t forget. They linger and fester, occasionally bursting like a boil and causing pain, such terrible pain.”Doris suffers a fall that lands her in the hospital where she continues to decline. She doesn’t see the point in living when everyone else has died already. Her one saving grace is her niece, Jenny, who she practically raised. Jenny and Doris have a very special bond. They were brought together when Jenny’s mother couldn’t take care of her because of a drug problem. Doris came to the rescue, finding out just how much she and Jenny needed each other. Jenny gave Doris a chance to make up for mistakes in her past and she became everything to Doris. Jenny comes to the hospital to stay with Doris until she dies. Jenny reads everything that Doris has written down for her and they discuss the things she hasn’t had a chance to write about yet. From the time in her life when Doris was a live mannequin in Paris, to the time she met the love of her life, and through the years of her lifetime friendship with a gay artist named Gosta. Doris says of her friendship with Gosta: “We had something very special. A link between our hearts, a glittering rainbow that brightened and dimmed over the years. But it was always there.”I did find the ending a little too sappy, but this book did have a lot of profound insights about life:“We never know what we have until it’s gone. That’s when we miss it.” “Being separated from a person you hold dear always feels like a wound to the soul.”“Everyone experiences setbacks in life. They change us. Sometimes we notice’ other times they happen without our knowledge. But the pain, that’s there the whole time, piled high in our hearts, like clenched fists ready to break free.”Doris’s final words to Jenny are the final words her own mother gave her: “I wish you enough. Enough sun to light up your days, enough rain that you appreciate the sun. Enough joy to strengthen you soul, enough pain that you can appreciate life’s small moments of happiness. And enough friends that you can manage a farewell now and then.”
    • 4/5
      You know when you finish a book and you’re sitting there with teary eyes and you just hold the book in your hands... What a lovely story. I’m sad it had to end, but of course it did. A really enjoyable, lovable story of a Swedish nonagenarian whose passion throughout her life was writing and recording her memories. It was a treat to be able to go through her life all over the world with her. Expect tears and the happy kind of endings that also make you a little sad and cry.Thank you to the publishers for a chance to read this in advance.
    • 5/5
      The Red Address Book by Sofia Lundberg was first published in Sweden in 2017. The book has since been translated to English by Alice Menzies and is available as of January 2019. This novel documents the sentimental journey of Doris, a 96-year-old woman living alone in Stockholm. Her only living relative is Jenny, her grandniece who lives in the US with her young family. The two women skype once a week and have a close and loving relationship. Doris was given a red address book by her father when she was a child. Throughout her long life, she wrote in many names of people who were part of her journey. In her old age, she started to write the story of each person in her book so that Jenny would know the history of Doris and herself. In failing health, Doris cannot forget one man who passed in and out of her life. Whatever happened to him? This small novel is a beautiful story of one woman's life. It is a little gem. Highly recommended. Thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
    • 5/5
      Doris Alm has lived a long and eventful life, from a poor childhood in Sweden, to modeling in Paris, to being a maid and companion to a frustrated artist. Doris has loved, and lost, and would probably agree with Tennyson that that's better than the alternative. But now she is concerned that when she dies, everything that has made up her life will die with her. So she determines to write about the people she knew and the things she did. She uses the red address book that her father gave her as a young girl as a prompt, as she looks through the pages and sees that nearly all of the names are crossed out and have the notation, "dead" written beside them. The story alternates between these reflections and her current life, home-bound, with her only connection to the outside world being the aides who come in to help her each day and her weekly Skype sessions with her only family, her great-niece Jenny who lives in San Francisco.This story is lovely, heartbreaking, tragic, and hopeful, all at the same time. The writing is evocative, both the past and present sections, and beautifully translated by Alice Menzies. Although it's slow to get into, Doris's story will sweep the reader along after the first few (short) sections.
    • 4/5
      Doris, 96, still lives on her own in Sweden, with the assistance of delivered meals and daily helper calls that clean and help her bathe. She visits with her only relative, her American grand-niece Jenny, via Skype. One day she decides that she’d like Jenny to know more about her past. Flipping through her address book, she finds most of the people in there crossed out with “dead” written beside them. How did she outlast them all? She begins to write her memoirs, meaning for Jenny to find them after she is gone.But Doris has a fall, lands in a hospital, and Jenny flies to her side, bringing her baby with her. She finds Doris’s memoirs- losing her father at a young age, being sent to work as a maid at 13 by her addict mother, being taken to Paris by her employer, becoming a high fashion model, falling in love, losing her love, fleeing to America, and finding her way back to Stockholm- and is deeply touched. She’s most touched by the love of Doris’s life- what ever happened to him? It’s the biggest loose end in Doris’s adventurous life. I liked the book; Doris’s life was very interesting although I did wonder at a couple of things, such as, why did she continue to leave her kid sister with their unstable mother, once she’d started earning good money? The end was lovely, but kind of predictable in a Hallmark Channel sort of way. The message in the story is live your life well; in the end, all you have are memories, good or bad. Four stars.
    • 5/5
      The Red Address Book by Sofia Lundberg is beautifully written, unique, joyous and heartbreaking... you won’t be able to put it down—guaranteed! Doris is a 96-year-old woman living in Stockholm. She has only one living relative—her great niece, Jenny, who lives in the the United States. This novel is part fictional memoir, part historical fiction, part romance and and one hundred percent amazing! The reader learns about and falls in love with Doris as she reminisces through her red address book which contains the names of all the people she has met thoughout her very eventful life. Most of the names are crossed out with DEAD written next to them. So her memories do not die with her, Doris records her life on paper for Jenny to read. This is a most charming book that I very much enjoyed! Bravo!
    • 4/5
      The Red Notebook by Sofia Lundberg is a charmer of a novel that will capture the hearts of readers.At 96, Doris is frail and bears the marks of her age, the wrinkles and the thinning pure white hair. But Doris knows she still has something to offer--her story--and with the aid of the red address book her father gave her as a child, Doris writers her recollections on her laptop, a gift of love to her grandniece Jenny.Hearing that Doris is hospitalized, Jenny leaves behind her husband and two children to manage on their own in America, taking their baby with her to Sweden. Jenny won't let the woman who saved her die alone.Doris writes about the early death of her beloved father, her time in service, her life as a mannequin in 1920s Paris. She tells about her loves and losses, the devastation of WWII, her struggles to survive in America and eventual return to Sweden. Her story is rife with losses and hardships that show #metoo is born out of a timeless and universal concern.The secondary plot line of Jenny's life, born to an addict mother and her struggle with feelings of being unloved, brings to the novel another relatable layer for contemporary readers.The Red Address Book has been an international best-seller and I expect it will meet with huge success among American readers. I would recommend it to book clubs as an easy to read book with likable characters, interesting historical settings, an engaging plot line, and as a heartbreaking romance story. I received an ARC through BookishFirst in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
    • 3/5
      Doris is a lonely 96-year old woman whom, before she dies wants to share her life’s experiences with her grandniece Jenny before she dies. Doris lives in Stockholm and Jenn lives in the US. Their only contact is through a weekly Skype session. When Doris falls down and ends up in the hospital, Jenny leaves her husband and sons to be by the side of her only living relative. Here she finds the pages Doris has written for her.Doris goes through her address book which helps her remember those from her past, most of which have already passed on. But before she passes on herself she needs to share her secrets.This is both a pleasant and sad story. I enjoyed the narratives from Doris’ past. They were descriptive and heart-warming (and heart-breaking). Overall, a good story but a somewhat predictable ending. I still liked it and did shed a tear or two.
    • 4/5
      After reading just the first twenty pages, I went back and read the thoughtful, beautiful words again. What a gentle and welcome lead-in to a unique tale of recreating a woman's memories through a well worn Red Address book given to her by her beloved father. As the descriptions evolve of Doris shuffling, shaking, getting dizzy and eventually falling, readers are drawn in to her present personality as she transfers her Address Book memories into print for her distant niece. Doris' reactions to her own coming death and her unhappy stay in the hospital alternate with her joy and her regrets from her past in Paris and with her good friend, Gosta. Unresolved are why she never sent money which she could well afford to spare to him when she knew he was trading paintings for milk and bread or to her sister and mother. Also, how could she just leave baby Elise with an aging woman as she went off to seek the inconstant man who claimed he loved her? Too many coincidences occur, making the story more magical than the reality it had been.
    • 4/5
      When my mom was downsizing to go into a nursing home, she asked all of us what we wanted. One of my main requests was her address book. She not only had address of friends and family but birthdates and dates for marriages and years that their children were born - a small history of her friends and family. Her connection with address book is what first made me want to read The Red Address Book and I was thrilled when I won a copy from Bookish Firsts. I definitely enjoyed the novel. Yes, it was sad throughout but I also found it full of love and the acceptance that a well lived life that was coming to an end.Doris is 96 years old and has a red address book that her father gave to her as a child. She crosses out each entry when the person dies and at her age there are more people crossed out than not. She uses the address book to remind herself of her earlier life and adventures and is then writing those down for her niece Jenny. Jenny lives in San Francisco and Doris in Stockholm so Doris doesn't know if they'll see each other again and she wants Jenny to know about her life. I thought that the story of Doris's life was lovely and full of fantastic memories. She traveled from Sweden to Paris to American and then back to Sweden and her life was full of adventures. I find her life quite exciting.Overall, this is a wonderful but sad book about the memories of an elderly woman as her days on earth are coming to an end. I highly recommend it.
    • 5/5
      Il ne reste plus beaucoup de temps à Doris ; à 96 ans, elle vit seule à Stockholm et la seule personne de sa famille est sa nièce Jenny qui vit à San Francisco. C’est grâce à Skype qu’elles se parlent régulièrement. Mais Doris a peur que le temps ne suffisse pas à tout lui raconter et confier, alors elle prend des notes dans un petit carnet rouge dans lequel elle parle des gens qui étaient importantes dans sa vie, qu’elle a rencontrées et aimées. La vie de Doris touche à sa fin, Jenny vole à Stockholm avec sa fille cadette pour être là pour sa tante tant aimée et pour dire adieu.Sofia Lundberg est journaliste et vit à Stockholm, « Un petit carnet rouge » est son premier roman qui a connu un grand succès en Suède. C’est une histoire d’une vie pleine d’aventures, de dangers, de succès et de défaites. Mais avant tout, c’est un roman sur l’amour, un amour qui a existé et qui a survécu, mais seulement à distance.Ce qui m’a plus beaucoup, c’est l’alternance des deux histoires, d’un côté, d’accompagner Doris pendant ses derniers jours et d’autre, de connaître sa vie, peu à peu, dès son enfance. C’était une vie turbulente qui n’était jamais facile mais qui a fait de Doris la personne qu’elle est à la fin de sa vie : une grande dame avec un grand cœur qui a tout vécu et qui peut tant donner.J’ai vraiment adoré le roman, les personnages sont tellement touchants et aimables qu’on ne veut pas les quitter à la fin. C’est un vrai bijou qu’il ne fallait pas du tout rater et il y a un vœu que la mère de Doris exprime quand elle est encore une petite fille qui montre très bien ce qui rend le roman tellement émouvant : elle lui souhaite« Assez de soleil pour illuminer tes jours, assez de pluie pour apprécier le soleil, assez de joie pour nourrir ton âme, assez de peine pour savoir profiter des petits plaisirs et assez de rencontres pour savoir dire adieu. »
    • 3/5
      3.5 starsThe Red Address Book is a charming, but very sad tale about Doris, a lonely 96-year-old woman who lives in Stockholm. She reminisces about her life and those individuals she encountered as she pages through an old address book she received from her father when she was young. Few of her friends and acquaintances remain, and Doris leads a solitary life except for her weekly Skype with her American niece Jenny. While I enjoyed some aspects of Doris’s long and eventful life, the story is so sad. I received this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.