Ladies and gentlemen!!! We have a winner!!! In a totally random drawing, conducted by my mother in law, because I couldn’t find a suitably cute kid named Per or Karin to pull names out of the hat, Kristina became the lucky winner of “Populärmusik från Vittula” – a novel by Mikael Niemi.

Grattis Kristina!!!

Kristina says she’s a tough woman who drives a SAAB. That explains the part about her being tough – someone once told me that SAAB stands for “Swedish Automobiles Always Broken”. As a former SAAB owner myself, I take pity on those who drive SAABs and that fact alone should make her a deserving winner. Yes, I admit it, I’m not a SAAB fan, OK?

I hope that Kristina will like the book. And I think we all should quiz her on it when she’s done reading it.

But guess what? Even if you didn’t win this time, you can still follow the story. And guess what the good news is? You can do it without actually reading the book! Luckily for the rest of us, this splendid novel has been turned into a movie.

I know that some movies totally butcher the original stories their screenplays are based on. But not this one. The director, Reza Bagher, took his time, read the book and did it right.

So I have an idea. While Kristina is busy reading the book this summer, why don’t we try to look up the film version and watch it as our first joint blog project? If finding the film proves too difficult, then (and only as the last resort) there’s the English translation – “Popular Music from Vittula” available in many libraries or from Amazon.

And in September, we can all compare our notes and discuss what we thought of either the film or the book. Or both. So, who’s in?