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: 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: 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

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

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson

November 27, 2010 by Christina

Fiction — print. Translated from the Swedish. Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. 565 pgs. Library copy. My enjoyment of the third and final book in Larsson’s series was definitely hampered by the fact that it has been two months since I read the second book, The Girl Who Played with Fire. The books are just so connected (this book immediately begins with the end of the second novel), and they really need to be read back to back for maximum enjoyment. […]

Categories: 2010 Reads, Chunkster, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Glass Key Award, Scandinavia, Swedish, Translated • Tags: Stieg Larsson

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

September 6, 2010 by Christina

Fiction — print. Translated from the Swedish. Vintage Books, 2010. 724 pgs. Borrowed from a friend. I was afraid I would have to wait a long time to read the second installment in Larsson’s Millennium trilogy. It’s available on my mom’s iPad but I don’t have one myself here at school. Luckily, my new roommate has a copy of both the first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and the second book even though she hasn’t read either of […]

Categories: 2010 Reads, Chunkster, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Scandinavia, Swedish, Translated • Tags: Stieg Larsson

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

August 12, 2010 by Christina

Fiction — print. Translated from the Swedish by Reg Keeland. Alfred A. Knopf, 2008. 465 pgs. Library copy. The original title in Sweden is Men Who Hate Women, which gives much more of the novel’s basis away than the international title but probably would not have encouraged people like my grandparents to pick the novel up. And this book, as well as the two subsequent books in the series, have become all the rage within my extended family. Grandparents, aunt, […]

Categories: 2010 Reads, Chunkster, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Glass Key Award, Scandinavia, Swedish, Translated • Tags: Stieg Larsson

A Blessed Child by Linn Ullmann

May 3, 2009 by Christina

Longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, A Blessed Child had me for the first 100 pages and then it just sort of teetered off from there. The reader doesn’t actually find out why the three sisters, Erika, Laura, and Molly, stop visiting Hammarsö, a tiny island in the Baltic Sea, when Erika was 14 until around page 218, and even then the story refuses to confront the problem, choosing instead to continue with the flashbacks. The story begins, though, […]

Categories: 2009 Reads, Europe, Fiction, Scandinavia • Tags: Linn Ullmann

“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” by Tom Stoppard

January 12, 2009 by Christina

“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” is the inventive tale of “Hamlet” as told from the worm’s-eye view of the bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters in Shakespeare’s play. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a play within a play containing a play within a play. It all gets quite confusing in the end, and while I understand the point of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead‘s choppy nature, it comes across as incohesive and junvenile. You almost need to interfuse […]

Categories: 2009 Reads, AP Literature, Europe, Fiction, Scandinavia, Textbook • Tags: Tom Stoppard