Norway

What's the best book to spend time on during our travel? My tip: pick a travel guidebook and turn to the last few pages. That's where they have resources like suggested reading. Choices include travelogue or literature from the country you're travelling to.

That's how I came up with the idea of borrowing a short novel Out Stealing Horses, written by a gifted Norwegian author Per Petterson.

At first glance it may seem that Trond Sander, the main character of the story, is doomed after losing his wife and sister in the course of one month - one from cancer and another a traffic accident - but in truth the old man is working out his way at the age of sixty-seven: to lay his hands on the house and do most of the work himself, makes his own dinner and overestimates his appetite, thus allowing extra portion to his only companion dog Lyra.

This is heartbreaking by my standards, far too tough. I didn't cry. Instead, I told myself how lucky I'm every morning I woke up with my wife and daughter next to me in this captivating Nordic country. And who would not?