The novel, A Man Called Ove, created something of a sensation in the book club world in 2016. I mildly enjoyed the novel but found the character unbearably curmudgeonly through the first half. Though I can understand how many people were attracted to this man of seemingly forgotten values: “Since his father’s death he had begun more and more to differentiate between people who did what they should, and those who didn’t. People who did and people who just talked. Ove talked less and less and did more and more.”

Imagine if the world was mute and people only knew you for your actions.

Who would they see?