India, July 10 -- "Art is a joy so overwhelming that you almost can't bear it [...] you can see a painting, and for a single moment of your life, just for a single breath, you can forget to be afraid."

Fredrik Backman's latest book, My Friends begins with Louisa, an aspiring artist, standing in an old church, facing the most famous painting in the world. She is nearly 18 years old, a foster child grieving her best and only friend. Among her meagre possessions, all of which fit into her backpack, is a postcard of a painting. It's the first thing she ever stole, stuck on the refrigerator of one of her early foster homes. It's "the first really beautiful thing she ever touched" and has since carried it with her, feeling through it an inexpl...