Each month, the Elliott Bay Book Club reads and discusses the best in contemporary fiction with the occasional classic thrown in for good measure. Our selection for this month is The Pets by Bragi Olafsson. Back in Reykjavik after a vacation in London, Emil Halldorsson is waiting for a call from a beautiful girl, Greta, that he met on the plane ride home, and he's just put on a pot of coffee when an unexpected visitor knocks on the door. Peeking through a window, Emil spies an erstwhile friend—Havard Knutsson, his one-time roommate and current resident of a Swedish mental institution—on his door step, and he panics, taking refuge under his bed and hoping the frightful nuisance will simply go away. An alternately dark and hilarious story of cowardice, comeuppance, and assumed identity, the breezy and straightforward style of The Pets belies its narrative depth, and disguises a complexity that grows with every page. Berlingske Tidende called it, "Brilliantly written and funny, no, very funny....The Pets is one of the best pieces of Nordic literature I've read in a long time."

--DUE TO ELECTION DAY, THIS BOOK GROUP IS MEETING ONE DAY EARLY!--