In my early days in Sweden, I tried to get my sambo to watch Swedish TV with me to help me pick up the language. It ended up being a half-hearted effort at best (my sambo isn’t really one for Swedish TV), and I don’t know if it ever helped my language acquisition as such, but it at least helped me recognize a few Swedish celebrities. One of them was Babben Larsson, and since I’d always thought she was funny, I was happy to snag a copy of her book Jag vägrar dö nyfiken (English: I refuse to die curious) when it appeared in my neighborhood buy-nothing group. This was two years ago, so it also definitely counts to working through my own library at home!
Jäg vägrar dö nyfiken isn’t a chronologically ordered life story, or the journey into show business, or an account of triumph over anxiety and burnout; it’s a loose collection of anecdotes and observations that travel back and forth in time and theme. It isn’t filled with jokes, exactly, but the tone is still lighthearted and there are quotes from her stand-up routines sprinkled throughout.
It’s an easy read, it’s fun, a little bit like sitting down with your cool aunt and hearing her stories about the crazy stuff she did when she was your age. An updated version came out in 2023, apparently, but I read the first edition from 2010 so I can only comment on that. An overall lovely time!
