The thing about Karl Ove is that in an age of the memoir and everyone with a blog using the first-person construct in their writing, he's one of the few with craft and skill enough to rise above the question, "Why am I giving two s***s about what this person has to say?" I find most people who exclusively use the "I" do so as a Facebook, as a way to inform us about how unique they think they are. It becomes tedious and vain. Karl Ove uses it in an unvarnished way to illustrate how truly alike he is with the rest of us.