Thoughts on Three (More) Book of the Month Selections

October 23, 2019 by Christina

When I cancelled my Book of the Month subscription last month, the customer service representative asked why I was ending my membership after only one year. I hemmed and hawed, not quite sure how to explain that the monthly arrival of a new book was adding to my mountainous to-read pile rather than to my reading enjoyment. Despite making a point to try and read books as soon as they came into my apartment, I still had three unread books […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Caribbean, Chunkster, Crime, Danish, Europe, Fiction, New York, North America, ReadDiverse, Scandinavia, Translated, United States

Don’t Look Back by Karin Fossum

July 10, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Translated from the Norwegian by Felicity David. Mariner Books, 2005. Originally published 2004. 320 pgs. Purchased. Near the base of Kollen Mountain, a little girl leaves her friend’s home after a sleepover and sets out with her toys, including a baby buggy, for the short walk home. Along the way, the little girl encounters neighbors who hastily say hello as they head to work until one man stops to offer her a ride home. A few hours […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Awards and Prizes, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Glass Key Award, Norwegian, Scandinavia, Translated • Tags: Karin Fossum

Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell

June 17, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Translated from the Swedish by Steven T. Murray. Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2003. Originally published 1991. 280 pgs. Purchased. On a cold January night, an elderly Swedish farmer awakens in the middle of the night to an eerie feeling. As his eyes and ears adjust to the faint light cast across the remote landscape, the farmer realizes the back window of his neighbor’s home has been broken into. Hurrying next door, the farmer finds his neighbor bludgeoned to […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Awards and Prizes, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Glass Key Award, Scandinavia, Swedish, Translated • Tags: Henning Mankell

Cheap by Ellen Ruppel Shell

January 29, 2019 by Christina

Nonfiction – print. Penguin Press, 2009. 320 pgs. Library copy. Since reading The Millionaire Next Door earlier this month, consumerism has been dominating my thoughts. I’ve been particularly contemplative of how people have rejected of material goods, attracted to articles like one in The Guardian by a man who lives “houseless” in Alaska and contemplating rereading Not Buying It.  In my search for more books on the topic, I was reminded of Shell’s book on consumerism. I borrowed her book from the library in […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Asia, Economics, Europe, Food, Nonfiction, North America, Scandinavia, Thailand, United States • Tags: Ellen Ruppel Shell

The Blue Room by Hanne Ørstavik

September 6, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Translated from the Norwegian by Deborah Dawkin. Peirene Press, 2014. Originally published 1999. 174 pgs. Library copy. The introduction to Ørstavik’s novella by the publisher, Meike Ziervogel of Peirene Press, is certainly an eyebrow-raising one. In it, Ziervogel recommends people who have read Fifty Shades of Grey read Ørstavik because the book: “…holds up a mirror to a part of the female psyche that yearns for submission. The story shows how erotic fantasies are formed by the relationship with our […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Europe, Fiction, Norwegian, Peirene Press, Scandinavia, Translated • Tags: Deborah Dawkin, Hanne Ørstavik

The Murder of Halland by Pia Juul

July 24, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken. Peirene Press, 2012. Originally published 2009. 189 pgs. Library copy. Bess awakens one morning in her home office to find that her husband, Halland, has left. His disappearance isn’t suspect; her normally leaves for work without waking her. But just as Bess prepares to step into the shower, the doorbell rings and the neighbor standing at her doorstep announces that he’s making a citizens arrest of her for the […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Awards and Prizes, Crime, Danish, Europe, Fiction, Peirene Press, Scandinavia, Translated • Tags: Martin Aitken, Pia Juul

The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz

July 22, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2015. Translated from the Swedish by George Goulding. 416 pgs. Library copy. Out of the blue, a Swedish computer programmer named Frans Balder shows up at the home of his ex-wife and announces that he is taking custody of their autistic son, August. He has decided to leave his job in the United States, stopping his research into artificial intelligence after the program he wrote was stolen by hackers. “It’s always the wrong people […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Scandinavia, Swedish, Translated • Tags: David Lagercrantz

Ten Favorite Reads From 2017

January 5, 2018 by Christina

I took an unplanned (yet needed) extended break from book blogging in 2017, but I thought I’d dust away the cobwebs and share ten of my favorite reads from the past year. I read 69 books in 2017 — a smaller number than is typical for me, but to be expected given how the year went for me. My list of ten includes three nonfiction titles and all but one was published after 2009. Half were actually selected by my […]

Categories: 2017 Reads, Africa, Asia, Bookish Notes, Europe, North America, Oceania, Russia, Scandinavia, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam • Tags: Amor Towles, Barbara Demick, Bill Browder, Fredrik Backman, Gail Honeyman, Jane Harper, Laurent Binet, Tim O'Brien, Trevor Noah, Yaa Gyasi

In the Darkness by Karin Fossum

May 5, 2015 by Christina

Fiction – print. Translated from the Norwegian by James Anderson. Harvill Secker, 2012. Originally published 1995. 314 pgs. Walking along the icy riverbanks late one afternoon, Eva and her seven-year-old daughter, Emma, discover a dead body bloated from weeks in the river floating near the surface. Emma instructs her mother to call the police, and Eva complies instructing her daughter to wait patiently outside the phone booth while she makes the call. Instead, she calls her father – never once […]

Categories: 2015 Reads, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Norwegian, Scandinavia, Translated • Tags: Karin Fossum

The Farm by Tom Rob Smith

January 28, 2015 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by James Langton and Suzanne Toren. Blackstone Audio, 2014. 9 hours, 24 minutes. Library copy. Out of the blue, Daniel receives a phone call from his father in Sweden informing him that his mother has been committed to a mental hospital. According to Daniel’s father, his mother, Tilde, has begun to imagine everything from a seemingly innocuous encounter with an elk to accusing the local community leader of harming his adopted, teenage daughter. Daniel immediately books […]

Categories: 2015 Reads, Audiobook, Book Club, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Scandinavia • Tags: James Langton, Suzanne Toren, Tom Rob Smith

The Snowman by Jo Nesbø

August 2, 2012 by Christina

Fiction — eBook. Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett. Knopf Doubleday, 2011. Originally published 2007. 390 pgs. Borrowed from a family member. The first snow of the season has fallen in Oslo. A boy named Jonas wakes in the night to find his mother gone. Out his window, in the cold moonlight, he sees the snowman that inexplicably appeared in the yard earlier in the day. Around its neck is his mother’s pink scarf. Harry Hole suspects a link […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Norwegian, Scandinavia, Translated • Tags: Jo Nesbø

Survivors by Bob Moore

February 14, 2011 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Oxford University Press, 2010. 512 pgs. Purchased. Subtitled “Jewish Self-Help and Rescue in Nazi-Occupied Western Europe”, Moore’s book is a large tome of work encompassing rescue in the countries of France/Vichy France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden with the focus largely on the first three countries. Moore emphasizes those factors that helped Jews avoid deportation, either through escape or by going underground, and argues that self-help and assistance by non-Jews were seldom mutually exclusive and were […]

Categories: 2011 Reads, Chunkster, Europe, Genocide, Germany, Holocaust, Nonfiction, Scandinavia, Textbook • Tags: Bob Moore