9 Best Fredrik Backman Books, Ranked (And Where to Start)

Start with "A Man Called Ove." That's the answer, no hedging. It's the book that made Backman a household name, and it's the easiest entry point into his whole catalog.

Last Tuesday I was standing in my kitchen making coffee when my coworker texted me for the third time about this "grumpy old man book" I absolutely had to read. I rolled my eyes, picked it up that weekend, and finished it two days later feeling like I'd made a new grumpy old friend. 

If you've ever wondered why people can't stop recommending this Swedish author, or you're staring at a shelf of his books wondering where to even begin, this is for you. Picking the wrong one first can honestly kill your momentum with an author you'd otherwise love, and I've seen it happen more times than I'd like to admit.

Key Takeaways

• A Man Called Ove is the best starting point: funny, sad, and fast-moving
• The Beartown trilogy (Beartown, Us Against You, The Winners) is his most ambitious work, but it's heavier and slower
• Anxious People is the funniest and most chaotic great if you like mysteries with heart
• His newest novel, My Friends, shows a different, more introspective side
• You do not have to read his books in order, except within the Beartown trilogy; that one's sequential

Should You Read Fredrik Backman Books in Order?

Here's the short version: mostly, no. Except when the answer is absolutely yes.

His standalone novels A Man Called Ove, Anxious People, and My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry don't connect to each other. Read them in whatever order your library has them in stock. But the Beartown series is different. Those three books follow the same town, the same families, across years. Skip Beartown and start with Us Against You, and you'll be lost within a chapter.

I made that exact mistake with a different trilogy once (not naming names, it was embarrassing), and I promised myself I'd never do it again. Lesson learned the hard way.

Reading Path	Best For	Order Matters?
Standalone novels	First-time readers, casual pace	No
Beartown trilogy	Readers who want a deep, slow-burn story	Yes, strictly
Novellas	Short breaks between bigger books	No

Fredrik Backman Books in Order (Full List)

Quick answer: here's the chronological publishing order, since that's what most people actually search for when they ask "fredrik backman books in order."

Book	Year	Type
A Man Called Ove	2012	Standalone
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry	2013	Standalone
Beartown	2016	Series (Book 1)
And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer	2016	Novella
Us Against You	2017	Series (Book 2)
Anxious People	2019	Standalone
The Winners	2022	Series (Book 3)
My Friends	2024	Standalone

Okay, small tangent here: I know some of these years feel like they blur together if you're not tracking publication dates closely. That's normal. What actually matters more than the year is the tone. Backman's early books lean funnier. His later ones get heavier. Keep that in mind more than the calendar.

The Best Standalone Novels to Start With

If you want the single best entry point into Backman's writing, it's a toss-up between A Man Called Ove and Anxious People; pick based on whether you want charm or chaos. Both are self-contained, both hit you emotionally when you least expect it, and neither requires reading anything else first.

A Man Called Ove (2012)

A grumpy, rule-obsessed widower is ready to give up on life until a loud, chaotic young family moves in next door and refuses to leave him alone.

What starts as mild irritation turns into something closer to a rescue for both sides. It's about grief hiding behind bad temper, and about how community sneaks up on people who think they don't need it. Many users on Reddit agree this is his ultimate starter novel, and I'm with them.

Element	What Works
Humor	Dry, dark, unexpectedly warm
Sadness	Hits hard but doesn't linger
Pacing	Fast; you'll finish in a few days
Relatability	Everyone knows someone like Ove

Anxious People (2019)

A failed bank robber takes a group of strangers hostage during an apartment viewing, except the robbery falls apart almost instantly.

What's left is eight anxious people locked in a room together, forced to actually talk to each other. It's a mystery, a comedy, and a quiet gut-punch about how everyone is fighting something you can't see. Is Anxious People worth reading? Yes, it's one of his funniest books while still landing some real emotional weight by the end.

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry (2013)

A seven-year-old girl is sent on a scavenger hunt through her late grandmother's old letters, each one an apology to someone in their apartment building.

Along the way, she meets the people her grandmother wronged, helped, or loved. It's part fairy tale, part grief story, and it's shorter than his other books if you want something less of a commitment.

The Beartown Trilogy: His Most Ambitious Work

The Beartown trilogy is Backman's best series, full stop, but it's also his heaviest and slowest work; don't start here if you want something light. This is small-town Sweden, hockey-obsessed, economically struggling, and one violent night that cracks the whole community open. It asks who a town protects, and who it sacrifices, when a star player is accused of something terrible.

Here's the thing about this trilogy: it's not really about hockey. I know that sounds like something you say to convince someone who hates sports to give it a shot, but I mean it. Hockey is just the backdrop. What it's actually about is loyalty, and how far a community will bend the truth to protect the people it's proud of.

Book	What It Covers	Emotional Weight
Beartown	The crisis and its immediate fallout	Heavy
Us Against You	The town splits, rivalries deepen	Heaviest
The Winners	Resolution, years later	Bittersweet

Beartown (2016)

A junior hockey team's star player is accused of assaulting a teenage girl, right before the biggest game of the town's season.

The community has to choose between protecting its golden boy and believing the girl he hurt. It's brutal in a quiet way no dramatic courtroom scenes, just the slow, ugly math of what a small town decides matters.

Us Against You (2017)

The fallout from Beartown's crisis splits the town into two hockey clubs, two loyalties, two versions of who's allowed to belong.

Characters you thought you understood get pushed into corners that reveal who they really are. It's angrier than the first book, and honestly, sadder too.

The Winners (2022)

Years later, the town faces one more crisis, and the people you've followed across two books have to decide what they're willing to lose to protect what's left.

It's the longest of the three, and it closes out storylines that have been building since page one of the first book. Bring tissues. I mean that literally.

Heartfelt Novellas Worth Your Time

And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer is short, but don't let the length fool you it might hit harder than anything else on this list.

It's a conversation between a grandfather losing himself to dementia and the grandson who refuses to let him go without a fight. You can read it in one sitting. You will probably need a minute after you finish it.

It's less a story with a plot and more a feeling stretched across eighty pages. If you've watched someone you love slowly forget who you are, this one's going to land differently for you than it does for everyone else. Just a heads up.

Book	Length	Best For
And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer	Novella (~80 pages)	Quick read, heavy emotion
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry	Novel (~350 pages)	Fairy tale lovers, grief stories

What's Fredrik Backman's Newest Book About?

His most recent novel, My Friends, moves away from small Swedish towns and hockey rinks into something quieter about a painting, the people connected to it, and what art actually means to the people who need it most.

It's more introspective than his earlier work. Readers who came for Ove-style comedy might find it slower, but readers who loved the emotional depth of Beartown will feel right at home.

I'll be honest, I went in expecting something closer to his older, funnier books, and got something different instead. Took me a chapter or two to adjust. Once I did, though, I didn't want to put it down.

Best Fredrik Backman Quotes to Know Before You Start

You don't need to memorize these, but a few lines from his books tend to stick with people long after they finish reading:

• Ove's stubborn belief that showing up for people, even grumpily, still counts as love
• A recurring idea across his books that anxious people are usually just scared people trying their best
• The Beartown trilogy's repeated line about how a town becomes what it's willing to forgive

I'm paraphrasing here on purpose. Go read the actual pages they land better in context than pulled out and pasted into a listicle.

Complete Book Descriptions

A Man Called Ove (2012)

A grumpy, rule-obsessed widower is ready to give up on life until a loud, chaotic young family moves in next door and refuses to leave him alone.

Ove is the kind of man who points at people he doesn't like and tells them they're not allowed to park here. He has strict routines, a short temper, and a deep belief that the world has gone soft. But beneath the cranky exterior is a man grieving the loss of his wife and the life they planned together. When a young couple with two children crashes into his carefully ordered world, Ove finds himself reluctantly pulled back into the community he'd sworn off. 

The book alternates between present-day grudges and flashbacks to Ove's past: his childhood, his marriage, the friendships he lost, the ones he never expected to make. It's funny in a dry, Swedish way, and devastating in a way that sneaks up on you. By the end, you'll understand why he's the way he is, and you'll probably cry on the last page.

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry (2013)

A seven-year-old girl is sent on a scavenger hunt through her late grandmother's old letters, each one an apology to someone in their apartment building.

Elsa is seven years old and different from other kids. Her grandmother is her only friend, her protector, the person who tells her that being different is a superpower. When her grandmother dies of cancer, she leaves Elsa a series of letters to deliver, each one an apology to someone in their building who her grandmother wronged, helped, or loved. 

As Elsa delivers them, she uncovers the truth about her grandmother's past: a woman who was once a doctor in a war zone, who fled her home country, who carried secrets that explain everything. The book is part fairy tale, part grief story, and it weaves together fantasy and reality in ways that feel like a hug and a gut punch at the same time. It's about how we remember people, and how we forgive them.

Beartown (2016)

A junior hockey team's star player is accused of assaulting a teenage girl, right before the biggest game of the town's season.

Beartown is a dying forest town, economically depressed, surrounded by trees that feel like they're closing in. The only thing holding it together is hockey. The junior team is finally good enough to compete for a national championship, and the whole town's future hinges on their success. But when the star player is accused of something terrible, the community fractures. 

Some believe the girl. Some believe the boy. And some just want to win badly enough that they'll sacrifice anyone to get there. The book doesn't flinch from the ugliness of small-town politics, but it also finds humanity in everyone, even the people you want to hate. It's slow, careful, and devastating.

And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer (2016)

A brief, deeply moving conversation between a grandfather losing his mind to dementia and the grandson who loves him.

This is a novella, barely eighty pages, and it reads like a single long breath. An old man and his grandson sit in a room that keeps changing; the grandfather can't always remember where he is, or who people are, but he knows his grandson. He knows he loves him. 

They talk about the past, about the grandmother who's gone, about the grandson's fears for the future. It's about losing someone while they're still alive, and about the ways we hold onto each other even when memory starts to slip. I read this in one sitting on a train and had to stare out the window for a long time after I finished.

Us Against You (2017)

The tense, emotional sequel examining the aftermath of the crisis and how the community fights to stay together.

Beartown has been torn apart. The town's two hockey clubs are now rivals, and the division runs deeper than sports. Families have taken sides. Friends aren't speaking. And the people who were already struggling economically, emotionally, and socially are pushed even further to the edge. The book follows the same characters as they try to rebuild, or tear down, or just survive. 

It's angrier than the first book, but also more hopeful in strange, small ways. New characters are introduced who complicate the story, and old characters are forced to make choices they never wanted to make. It doesn't have a neat ending, because the kind of damage Beartown suffered doesn't get fixed in a single season.

Anxious People (2019)

A failed bank robber accidentally traps a group of eccentric, stressed-out strangers viewing an apartment for sale, leading to an emotional and funny look at human connection.

A man tries to rob a cashless bank, fails, and flees into an apartment viewing where eight strangers are awkwardly looking at a place they can't afford. He takes them hostage, except nobody seems that scared. The hostages are too busy with their own problems: marriage troubles, parenting failures, loneliness, career crises. 

Over the course of a long, strange night, they start talking to each other, and they realize they have more in common than they thought. The book is told from multiple perspectives, including a pair of detectives who are also struggling with their own issues. It's funny, chaotic, and surprisingly tender. It makes you think about how desperate people do desperate things, and how we're all just trying our best.

The Winners (2022)

The final powerful book in the trilogy that closes the chapter on the town and its unforgettable residents.

Two years have passed since the events of Us Against You. Beartown's rival town, Hed, is getting more powerful, and the old tensions between the two communities are simmering again. A storm is coming, literally and figuratively. The characters you've followed across two books are older, more worn down, and facing new crises. Some are trying to leave. Some are trying to hold on. 

Some are trying to forgive themselves for the things they did and didn't do. It's the longest book in the trilogy, and it doesn't rush to its conclusion. Backman gives every character space to resolve their arcs, and some of those resolutions are bitter, while others are sweet. It closes the circle on Beartown in a way that feels earned and complete.

My Friends (2024)

A quieter, more introspective novel about a painting, the people connected to it, and what art actually means to the people who need it most.

This book moves away from the small Swedish towns and hockey rinks of his previous work. It's about a painting, who painted it, who owns it, who loved it, who hated it. But really it's about the people who orbit around it: an artist struggling to create anything meaningful, a collector who wants to possess beauty, a young woman who sees something in the painting that nobody else does. 

It's slower than his other books, more meditative. There's less humor and more melancholy. Some readers will find it frustrating. Others will find it his most honest work. I landed somewhere in the middle. I missed the humor, but I admired the risk he took in writing something so different.

Which Fredrik Backman Book Should You Read First? A Quick Decision Guide

Honestly, this depends on what mood you're in. Here's how I'd break it down if a friend asked me over coffee.

If You Want...	Start With
Something funny and heartwarming	A Man Called Ove
A mystery with emotional depth	Anxious People
A big, slow-burn family and community saga	Beartown
Something short and devastating	And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer
A quieter, more reflective read	My Friends

If You Like Fredrik Backman Similar Authors

Author	Vibe	Where to Start
Matt Haig	Heartfelt, mental health, humor	"The Midnight Library"
Gabrielle Zevin	Character-driven, warm	"Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow"
TJ Klune	Found family, heartwarming	"The House in the Cerulean Sea"
Rebecca Serle	Emotional, relationship-focused	"In Five Years"
Jojo Moyes	Emotional, character-driven	"Me Before You"
Gail Honeyman	Quirky characters	"Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine"

Specific Recommendations by Book You Liked

If you loved "A Man Called Ove":

Book	Author	Why You'll Like It
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window	Jonas Jonasson	Quirky old man, humor
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine	Gail Honeyman	Lonely protagonist, heartwarming
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry	Rachel Joyce	Journey, self-discovery, older protagonist

If you loved "Anxious People":

Book	Author	Why You'll Like It
The Midnight Library	Matt Haig	Life choices, anxiety, heart
Beautiful World, Where Are You	Sally Rooney	Conversation-driven, human connection

If you loved "Beartown":

Book	Author	Why You'll Like It
Small Great Things	Jodi Picoult	Moral questions, community
The Last Thing He Told Me	Laura Dave	Tension, emotional depth

What's Fredrik Backman's Newest Book About?

His most recent novel, My Friends, moves away from small Swedish towns and hockey rinks into something quieter — about a painting, the people connected to it, and what art actually means to the people who need it most. It's more introspective than his earlier work. Readers who came for Ove-style comedy might find it slower, but readers who loved the emotional depth of Beartown will feel right at home.

I'll be honest, I went in expecting something closer to his older, funnier books, and got something different instead. Took me a chapter or two to adjust. Once I did, though, I didn't want to put it down.

Best Fredrik Backman Quotes to Know Before You Start

You don't need to memorize these, but a few lines from his books tend to stick with people long after they finish reading:

• Ove's stubborn belief that showing up for people, even grumpily, still counts as love.
• A recurring idea across his books that anxious people are usually just scared people trying their best.
• The Beartown trilogy's repeated line about how a town becomes what it's willing to forgive. I'm paraphrasing here on purpose. Go read the actual pages — they land better in context than pulled out and pasted into a listicle.

So — Which One Are You Starting With?

If you're still torn, just go with Ove. It's the safest bet, and it's the book that turns casual readers into people who buy everything he's ever written.

I've been reading Backman for years now, and I still remember how I felt finishing Ove for the first time. It was the kind of book where you sit there after the last page, not quite ready to put it down, because leaving the world feels like leaving a friend.

That's what Backman does. He makes you care about people who don't exist, in towns you've never been to, in ways that stick with you long after you've closed the book.

Go pick one. Any one. Just start somewhere.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best Fredrik Backman book?

"A Man Called Ove" is his best-known and most beloved. But "Beartown" is arguably his best written. It depends on what you want. Ove is heartwarming. Beartown will destroy you.

What Fredrik Backman book should I read first?

"A Man Called Ove." It's the most accessible, the most famous, and the best introduction to his style. If you like it, you'll like his other work.

What is the best series by Fredrik Backman?

The Beartown trilogy. There's no other series. The rest are standalones.

What order do the Fredrik Backman books go in?

Publication order: Ove, Grandmother, Britt-Marie, Beartown, Us Against You, Deal of a Lifetime, Every Morning, Things My Son, Anxious People, Winners.

Do you have to read Fredrik Backman's books in order?

Only the Beartown trilogy. And "Britt-Marie Was Here" is a spin-off from "My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry." So you could read that first if you want. But the rest are standalones.

What is the first fantasy book by Fredrik Backman?

He doesn't write fantasy. "My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry" has fairy-tale elements, but it's not a fantasy novel.

Is Fredrik Backman my friend LGBTQ?

This is a confusing question. Fredrik Backman himself isn't LGBTQ (that I know of). But his books include LGBTQ characters. There's a queer storyline in the Beartown series. So if you're asking if he writes inclusive stories, yes, he does.

Final Thoughts

I keep coming back to one thought: Fredrik Backman writes about people. Messy, complicated, often unlikeable people. And he makes you love them anyway.

That's a gift. Not everyone can do that. He can.

So start with "A Man Called Ove." Or "Anxious People" if you want something lighter. Or "Beartown" if you want something that'll stick with you for a long time.

Just read something. Because once you start, you won't want to stop.

I was eating a pear while writing this. Decent pear. Not as good as the Honeycrisp I mentioned last time. But it did the job.

Go read a Backman book. Bring tissues. You'll need them.

Complete Bibliography (At a Glance)

Year	Title	Type	Pages
2012	A Man Called Ove	Novel	337
2013	My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry	Novel	352
2014	Britt-Marie Was Here	Novel	352
2016	Beartown	Novel	432
2016	And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer	Novella	77
2017	Us Against You	Novel	448
2017	The Deal of a Lifetime	Novella	96
2019	Things My Son Needs to Know About the World	Non-fiction	256
2020	Anxious People	Novel	352
2022	The Winners	Novel	576