Literary Fiction · Free kit
My Friends
Most people look at the world's most famous seascape and see water. Eighteen-year-old Louisa looks closer and finds three tiny figures at the end of a pier — then spends a train ride learning how those friends, twenty-five years earlier, turned one brutal harbor-town summer into a painting that outlived them. Backman's novel is about found family, art that refuses to stay a landscape, and the people who call you one of us before you believe it.
“If you've had people who can make you laugh like that, you never forget it. If not, words are pointless.”
Complete free book club kit
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Plan your meeting
My Friends Hosting Guide
A free, printable-minded plan for hosting My Friends.
Invite hook
“Most people look at the famous painting and see the sea. Louisa looks closer — three tiny figures on a pier — and a dying artist calls her one of us.”
The question you’re arguing about: If someone handed you the one beautiful thing that ever saw you, would you keep it or sell it to get safe?
Shopping list
- □Cinnamon buns or cardamom buns (Swedish fika energy for a long Backman night)
- □Coffee and hot tea — this discussion runs long
- □Lemonade and sparkling water with lemon (pier / open-water, no fuss)
- □Iced tea and a pitcher of juice
- □Simple picnic snacks: pretzels, crackers, fruit, maybe cheese — abandoned-pier summer food, not a banquet
- □Cheap sea or pier postcards (or blue index cards) for place settings
- □A blue cloth or table runner and a few watercolor postcards as a makeshift "seascape"
- □Printed bingo cards and pens
Day-of timeline
- 0–10 minWelcome, drinks, and icebreakers (reader questions only)
- 10–20 minTrivia warm-up — start easy with the painting's title
- 20–55 minMain discussion: the gift of the painting, Joar's choices, and whether the pier actually saved anyone
- 55–70 minSpeed debate or Would You Rather — keep a timer; this group will overtime
- 70–80 minBingo leftover squares, rate the book in one word, vote on next month
Surprise touch
Set a pier or open-water postcard at each seat, blank on the back. Ask everyone to write the name of the first person who made them feel like they belonged — Louisa's postcard of The One of the Sea is the object that carries her until living people can. Read a few aloud only if people want to; the rest stay private. It lands because the novel is about being seen, not about decorating a table.
Wrap-up
- □Group photo with the postcard place settings or a blue "pier" table runner
- □Quick rating: 1–5 stars and one word (try to ban "sad" — make them work)
- □Vote on next month's book together