Every month, we’ve been posting an “other great reads” list—a list of books about or related to the country we read that month as an addendum to the official list of 6 books we voted on to read.
These posts have been really popular, however, we realized we’d been missing out on an opportunity to increase the size of our global reading list. So moving forward, we’re going to divide the list up into 2 categories.
1. Books that match our club criteria will be added into our global reading list:
This includes any book written by a native author largely occurring in that author’s country unless the world described is an alternate reality (e.g., sci fi, fantasy, etc.).
2. Books that don’t match the above criteria will be included in a “related reads” post:
This includes any book written about the country which isn’t written by a native author.
-or-
Any book written by a native author which doesn’t occur in that author’s country.
(We’ll also be going back over the next few months & re-categorizing our previous posts with “other great reads” & dividing them up into these same 2 categories.)
Now onto the Swedish Books
This month is an interesting one as the large majority of books we found were written by native Swedish authors about Sweden. We’ve added these along with some suggestions from book club members to the Reading List today under the Sweden category—17 books in total linked at the bottom of this post.
However, we did also come across 5 delicious reads which aren’t purely Swedish & instead, fall into that “related reads” category. These we’ve included below along with why they are related reads & not official Swedish books.
Happy reading!
Written about 3 Swedish men by a Swedish author, but doesn’t take place in Sweden:
Winner of the August Prize, the largest literary award in Sweden
“11 July, 1897. Three men set out in a hydrogen balloon bound for the North Pole. They never return. Two days into their journey they make a crash landing then disappear into a white nightmare.
33 years later. The men's bodies are found, perfectly preserved under the snow and ice. They had enough food, clothing and ammunition to survive. Why did they die?
66 years later. Bea Uusma is at a party. Bored, she pulls a books off the shelf. It is about the expedition. For the next 15 years, Bea will think of nothing else...
Can she solve the mystery of the Expedition?”
“Uusma's tenacity has produced real results by the artless vulnerability with which she reveals her own foibles and the artful way in which she weaves together history, research, and self-revelation into something of genuine substance.” - The Times Literary Supplement
About Sweden, but the author was born in the US & grew up there. However, she spent the last 40 years in Sweden & now has dual citizenship:
“The harshness of Swedish peasant life and landscape is beautifully chronicled in Judit Martin's novel.
‘Presently, the evenness of his breathing told her he was asleep. For a long time, she lay on her back just as he had left her, mulling over her situation. In those brief minutes, everything had supposedly righted itself. She had officially left her girlhood behind forever and become a woman. The days of wearing her hair down her back in a long braid were gone, although she was not yet entitled to wear a married woman's kerchief. Nor did she belong to the group of young housemaids who had been her friends, nor to a group of married women whom she hardly knew. All at once, she felt very alone, not knowing what was expected of her. The only thing she knew for sure was that her life had taken a false turn, and she didn't know how to set it right again.’
19th century Swedish peasant life was not always the dance around the Midsummer pole portrayed by the artists of the time. Those same peasants lived daily lives in the shadow of the all-powerful village church, controlled by the countless rules, customs, and traditions that governed every aspect of their existence, leaving no room for individual deviations.
When it became known that Augusta Torsdotter's daughter Elsa-Carolina was illegitimate, the course of both of their lives irrevocably changed. As an adult, Elsa-Carolina immigrated to America. It wasn't until three-quarters of a century later, at the age of 94, that she returned to Sweden, to come to terms with her girlhood.”
Note: This book is intended for mature audiences.
Written by a Swedish author about the US with some Swedish touches:
“World-renowned hip-hop artist Jason ‘Timbuktu’ Diakité’s vivid and intimate journey through his own and his family’s history—from South Carolina slavery to 21st century Sweden.
Born to interracial American parents in Sweden, Jason Diakité grew up between worlds—part Swedish, American, black, white, Cherokee, Slovak, and German, riding a delicate cultural and racial divide. It was a no-man’s-land that left him in constant search of self. Even after his hip-hop career took off, Jason fought to unify a complex system of family roots that branched across continents, ethnicities, classes, colors, and eras to find a sense of belonging.
Click play above to view 1 of his music videos. Click here for the lyrics in English.
In A Drop of Midnight, Jason draws on conversations with his parents, personal experiences, long-lost letters, and pilgrimages to South Carolina and New York to paint a vivid picture of race, discrimination, family, and ambition. His ancestors’ origins as slaves in the antebellum South, his parents’ struggles as an interracial couple, and his own world-expanding connection to hip-hop helped him fashion a strong black identity in Sweden.
What unfolds in Jason’s remarkable voyage of discovery is a complex and unflinching look at not only his own history but also that of generations affected by the trauma of the African diaspora, then and now.”
(A special thank you to book club member, Carol Weldon for the suggestion.)
Written by a Swedish author, however, the story takes place in a variety of countries with the area of Scandinavia being just one part of the novel:
“A beloved Viking saga and masterpiece of historical fiction, The Long Ships is a high spirited adventure that stretches from Scandinavia to Spain, England, Ireland, and beyond.
Frans Gunnar Bengtsson’s The Long Ships resurrects the fantastic world of the 10th century AD when the Vikings roamed and rampaged from the northern fastnesses of Scandinavia down to the Mediterranean. Bengtsson’s hero, Red Orm—canny, courageous, and above all lucky—is only a boy when he is abducted from his home by the Vikings and made to take this place at the oars of their dragon-prowed ships. Orm is then captured by the Moors in Spain, where he is initiated into the pleasures of the senses and fights for the Caliph of Cordova. Escaping from captivity, Orm washes up in Ireland, where he marvels at those epicene creatures, the Christian monks, and from which he then moves on to play an ever more important part in the intrigues of the various Scandinavian kings and clans and dependencies. Eventually, Orm contributes to the Viking defeat of the army of the king of England and returns home an off-the-cuff Christian and a very rich man, though back on his native turf new trials and tribulations will test his cunning and determination. Packed with pitched battles and blood feuds and told throughout with wit and high spirits, Bengtsson’s book is a splendid adventure that features one of the most unexpectedly winning heroes in modern fiction.”
A fictional work written by an American about Sweden:
“Novelist Andrew Craig has not been sober in a very long time. After losing his wife in an auto accident he believes to have been his own fault, he turned to the bottle, and to his sister-in-law, Leah, who acts as his caretaker and live-in nurse. Then, when he is awarded the Nobel Prize in literature for his novel, ‘The Perfect State,’ a historical jab at communism, he heads for Stockholm, hoping to find a reason to live, and to write. The other laureates have their own problems, a heart surgeon who believes that sharing his award with an Italian colleague robs him of his glory, a married couple awarded the prize in medicine in the middle of a serious marital crisis, and others – including Max Stratman, whose heart isn't really up to the trip, but who needs the prize money to provide for niece, Emily.
This novel delves into the lives, loves, dreams and nightmares of these characters, and others, building a panoramic view of the Nobel Prize, life in Stockholm, and the state of world politics in the years following World War II. It is rich and compelling, driving the reader from the pits of despair to the heights of inspiration.”
Looking for more purely Swedish books?
Check out the 17 additional Swedish reads we just added to our Reading List today!