Dog love and delivery bikes

The wonder of reading should not be underestimated or undervalued. In a year that, like every year, becomes too long, when everything drags its feet and looks tired, there are always books, new books appearing every day. Let me tell you about two books that launched me out of the mundane and filled me with wonder.

When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzén has been translated from Swedish and, according to the cover, is an international bestseller. I can see why. It’s one of those quiet, miraculous books that grips your heart, like The Book Thief. It's full of compassion and humanity, and the sadness of transience.

Bo Andersson is 89. He lives in the house where he grew up and which he later inherited from his parents, with his beloved dog, Sixten – a Swedish elkhound. They are beautiful animals that look a bit like a husky. I’ll show you, because Sixten is an important character in the book.

Bo and his wife Fredrika were happily married, in their own way. He worked in the sawmill and she planted vegetables and longed for her home region and family. She developed dementia and their son, Hans, had her admitted to an institution because Bo could no longer care for her. They visit her sometimes, but it’s not a pleasant experience. She no longer recognises them, she is no longer present behind her eyes and Bo believes she is just a husk of herself. She doesn’t even smell like herself anymore, but like cheap soap and disinfectants. Bo keeps her beloved scarf in a jar on the kitchen table and sometimes smells it. His rheumatic fingers can no longer open the jar; the caregivers open it for him.

He also can't sleep in the bed in their room. He and Sixten sleep on the daybed in the kitchen. Bo's balance is no longer reliable, his eyes are dimming and he has all sorts of aches. He is no longer hungry; food tastes different than before, slimy. He sleeps through the days and wakes up to take Sixten for a walk. The caregivers daily record what he has eaten and how he feels. They more or less force him into the shower and they give Sixten food and water and sometimes take him for a walk, even if it's not in their job description.

Bo's son Hans is in his fifties and unhappy. He is divorced, lonely, and stressed due to his work. Their relationship was never optimal and now he is the boss. He feels Bo is too old to look after Sixten and wants to find him another home. He doesn't want Bo to fetch firewood from the shed, because he might slip on the ice and fall. He has the daybed, an heirloom from Fredrika's parents, carted off to a pawn shop and installs a hospital bed with all sorts of adjustments in the kitchen. The bed is too soft for Bo.

One wants to see Hans as the enemy who threatens Bo's happiness, but repeatedly something happens that proves him right: Bo falls in the forest and cannot get up. Sixten's water bowl is empty. The end is inevitable, like death, like decay.

The chapters in the present are interspersed with memories: Bo increasingly lives in his head and in vivid dreams of the past. How he took it for granted to be young and strong, with a kind, beautiful wife. How he and Hans loved to go fishing when the boy was little. Further back too, his implacable, cruel father. His gentle mother – the first five years of his life, before he went to school, when he and his mother were alone on the farm and his father was rarely present, were the happiest of his life. Other dogs he had loved.

It is told without fuss or embellishment, simply. It is simply heartbreaking and enchanting. The reader again realises how short life is. We experience Bo's entire life condensed and see him in different phases; not only as the gnarled old man who harbours anger and aches. It is the ideal gift.

When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzén is published by Penguin Random House UK and costs R390 at Exclusive Books.

Another book for the Christmas stocking is One Minute Away by Mark Watson. Watson is a London-based writer and comedian. This novel also tugs at the heartstrings.

Damir followed his friend Goran from Croatia to Britain in search of a better life. They are delivery drivers—Goran on a motorcycle, Damir on a bicycle. They live together in a modest flat and hustle all day from one delivery to the next, in wind and rain. They have to deal with dissatisfied customers—the restaurant always makes it sound as if the order is ready, while the drivers have to stand and wait for it to be completed. They then get blamed for the cold food. They want to save, but Goran is still paying off his motorcycle and Damir sends money home every month for his elderly father and unemployed sister.

They are constantly tired and hungry. Then something happens that changes the course of Damir's life. The restaurant is late again and, on top of that, gives the wrong order. When Damir arrives with it at a luxurious house in an affluent area, the owner storms out, screams at him, and throws the bag of edamame beans in the trash can.

On another day, he is urinating in a dead-end street—they're not allowed to use the restaurants' bathrooms—when a teenager watches him from a house. The same house with the brute who threw away the beans. A beautiful woman comes out and speaks to him in a friendly manner. He apologizes, and she insists on giving him a tip to compensate for her husband's boorish behaviour.

A tip of a thousand pounds appears in his account. It's unheard of. He returns to her house to ask if it was a mistake. It wasn't. She invites him in for a beer, and they get to talking. After that, they text regularly. Just another bored, restless middle-aged woman looking for kicks, the reader thinks. And yet, it isn't so simple. There is something beautiful and fragile between them, but everything points to it heading for a fiasco.

Read for yourself what happens. It's a novel that makes you experience vicariously how it feels to find your feet as a stranger in an unknown country, with a language you struggle to master. It makes you reflect on loneliness and attraction. I highly recommend it.

One Minute Away by Mark Watson is published by HarperCollins and costs R455 at Exclusive Books.