Fict - The 100-Year-Old man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

What a surprisingly quirky, laugh-out-loud, fun book!  Think Carl Hiaasen meets Forrest Gump in Sweden.  Spry centenarian escapes a nursing home hours before his 100th birthday and with nothing to lose, goes on an absurdly hilarious adventure, meeting a variety of characters & getting accused of burglary & murder.

No spoilers here, but through flashbacks, we find out about his exciting and unusual life - traveling and meeting world leaders in unusual situations - all the way to the point where he enters the nursing home.   A simple man with common sense but no formal schooling, Allan Karlsson hates politics and religion, and only wants to practice his trade and drink as many kinds of vodka as possible.

With undercurrents of absurdity, irony and satire, this book makes history come alive in a fun way. If I were a teacher, I would use this as a textbook - kids from middle school upwards would love it, and I guarantee they would learn and remember.  Each event could be analyzed and discussed for a complete history of the 20th century.