City of My Dreams

“This is the first book in Fogelstrom's five-volume Stockholm Series, which broke the record for bestsellers in his native Sweden. After reading the series in Swedish, Jennifer Brown Baverstam, an accomplished translator of Swedish and French, and married to a Swede, vowed to make these books available in English to share with her American family and friends. The author was delighted with this effort and worked with Jennifer until his death in 1998.

This remarkable book tells the tale of Henning Nilsson and his family, a family whose origins and growth in the underclass of 19th-century Stockholm mirror the growth of Stockholm itself into a modern European metropolis. Beginning with the arrival in the city of the fifteen-year-old Henning, barefoot and penniless, on the eve of the industrial revolution, it continues with the story of his impassioned struggle for a fully human life. Powerfully written, City of My Dreams sweeps the reader along in a historical saga of fortune and love in a society experiencing great social and political upheaval.”

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War Diaries, 1939-1945

“Before she became internationally known for her Pippi Longstocking books, Astrid Lindgren was an aspiring author living in Stockholm with her family at the outbreak of the Second World War. The diaries she kept throughout the hostilities offer a civilian's, a mother's, and an aspiring writer’s unique account of the devastating conflict. She emerges as a morally courageous critic of violence and war, as well as a deeply sensitive and astute observer of world affairs. We hear her thoughts about rationing, blackouts, the Soviet invasion of Finland, and the nature of evil, as well as of her personal heartbreaks, financial struggles, and trials as a mother and writer.

Posthumously published in Sweden to great international acclaim, these diaries were called in the Swedish press an ‘unparalleled war narrative,’ ‘unprecedented,’ and a ‘shocking history lesson.’ Illustrated with family photographs, newspaper clippings, and facsimile pages, Lindgren’s diaries provide an intensely personal and vivid account of Europe during the war.”

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Popular Music from Vittula

“Popular Music from Vittula tells the fantastical story of a young boy's extraordinary existence, peopled by a visiting African priest, a witch in the heart of the forest, cousins from Missouri, an old Nazi, a beautiful girl with a black Volvo, silent men and tough women, a champion-bicyclist music teacher with a thumb in the middle of his hand—and, not least, on a shiny vinyl disk, the Beatles.

The story unfolds in sweltering wood saunas, amidst chain thrashings and gang warfare, learning to play the guitar in the garage, over a traditional wedding meal, on the way to China, during drinking competitions, while learning secret languages, playing ice hockey surrounded by snow drifts, outsmarting mice, discovering girls, staging a first rock concert, peeing in the snow, skiing under a sparkling midnight sky.

In the manner of David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green, Mikael Niemi tells a story of a rural Sweden at once foreign and familiar, as a magical childhood slowly fades with the seasons into adult reality.”

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An Event in Autumn

“[Mankell’s] Swedish detective, Inspector Kurt Wallander, is one of the most impressive creations in crime fiction today. . . . An old-fashioned moral force and sense of disquiet of the sort rarely found in contemporary crime fiction.”
- The Guardian

“Henning Mankell's novels have been translated into 40 languages and have sold more than 40 million copies worldwide. He is the first winner of the Ripper Award (the European prize for crime fiction) and has also received the Glass Key and Golden Dagger awards.

After nearly thirty years in the same job, Inspector Kurt Wallander is tired, restless, and itching to make a change. He is taken with a certain old farmhouse, perfectly situated in a quiet countryside with a charming, overgrown garden. There he finds the skeletal hand of a corpse in a shallow grave. Wallander’s investigation takes him deep into the history of the house and the land, until finally the shocking truth about a long-buried secret is brought to light.”

Note: This book is the last in the series, but can stand alone as the first Inspector Wallander book you read.

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Hanna's Daughters

“An uplifting family saga. Fredriksson provides a satisfyingly complex chronicle of women and the burdens imposed by their family history, their gender and themselves. Its message of reconciliation is transcendent.” -People

”Sweeping through 100 years of history, this luminous story follows three generations of Swedish women—a grandmother, a mother, and a daughter—whose lives are linked through a century of great love and great loss.

Resonating with truth and revelation, this moving novel deftly explores the often difficult but enduring ties between mothers and daughters, the sacrifices, compromises, and rewards in the relationships between men and women, and the patterns of emotion that repeat themselves through generations. If you have ever wanted to connect with the past, or rediscover family, Hanna's Daughters will strike a chord in your heart.”

(A special thank you to book club member, Beth Cummings for the suggestion.)

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Woman with Birthmark

“International Bestseller

Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is on the case once more in this breathless thriller of deception, blackmail, and cold murder.

Van Veeteren and his associates are left bewildered by the curious murder of a man shot twice in the heart and twice below the belt. An utterly dull man, the only suspicious activity his surviving wife can report is a series of peculiar phone calls. Repeatedly the telephone would ring, offering no answer but an obscure pop song from the 1960s. This siren song would be linked to an identical murder, but the true connection remains unknown. With a cool, critical eye, Van Veeteren pursues his subject across the country, wading through outrageous leads and fruitless tips in this chilling mystery from master crime novelist Håkan Nesser.”

Note: Though this is book #4 in the series, this book can standalone as the first Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery you read.

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Everything I Don't Remember

“Winner of the August Prize, Sweden’s most prestigious literary honor

One of Sweden’s most celebrated young writers and activists spins an exhilarating, innovative, and gripping murder mystery reminiscent of the hit podcast Serial.

A young man named Samuel dies in a horrible car crash. Was it an accident or was it suicide? To answer that question, an unnamed writer with an agenda of his own sets out to map Samuel’s last day alive. Through conversations with friends, relatives, and neighbors, a portrait of Samuel emerges: the loving grandchild, the reluctant bureaucrat, the loyal friend, the contrived poseur. The young man who did everything for his girlfriend Laide and shared everything with his best friend Vandad. Until he lost touch with them both.

By piecing together an exhilarating narrative puzzle, we follow Samuel from the first day he encounters the towering Vandad to when they become roommates. We meet Panther, Samuel’s self-involved childhood friend whose move to Berlin indirectly cues the beginning of Samuel’s search for the meaning of love—which in turn leads Samuel to Laide. Soon, Samuel’s relationship with Laide leads to a chasm in his friendship with Vandad, and it isn’t long before the lines between loyalty and betrayal, protection, and peril get blurred irrevocably.

Everything I Don’t Remember is a gripping tale about love and memory. But it is also a story about a writer who, by filling out the contours of Samuel’s story, is actually trying to grasp a truth about himself. In the end, what remains of all our fleeting memories? And what is hidden behind everything we don’t remember? Told with Khemiri’s characteristic stylistic ingenuity, this is an emotional roller coaster ride of a book that challenges us to see ourselves—and our relationships to the closest people in our lives—in new and sometimes shocking ways.”

(A special thank you to book club member, Markey Jones for the suggestion.)

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Doctor Glas

“A masterpiece of enduring power, Doctor Glas confronts a chilling moral quandary with gripping intensity. With an introduction by Margaret Atwood.

Stark, brooding, and enormously controversial when first published in 1905, this astonishing novel juxtaposes impressions of fin-de-siècle Stockholm against the psychological landscape of a man besieged by obsession. Lonely and introspective, Doctor Glas has long felt an instinctive hostility toward the odious local minister. So when the minister’s beautiful wife complains of her husband’s oppressive sexual attentions, Doctor Glas finds himself contemplating murder.”

”Imagine the classic 19th century drama featuring a tyrannical older man, his hapless daughter or young wife, and her caddish suitor, as in Balzac's Eugénie Grandet and Henry James's Washington Square, this time conjured up by a sensibility akin to Strindberg's and Ingmar Bergman's—and you begin to have an idea of the force and candor of this searing masterwork of Nothern European literature. The retrieval of Doctor Glas in English is a bracing gift to hungry readers.” -Susan Sontag

(A special thank you to book club member, Judy Tanguay for the suggestion.)

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Quicksand

“Now a Netflix Original Series

An incisive courtroom thriller and a drama that raises questions about the nature of love, the disastrous side effects of guilt, and the function of justice.

A mass shooting has taken place at a prep school in Stockholm’s wealthiest suburb. Eighteen-year-old Maja Norberg is charged for her involvement in the massacre that left her boyfriend and her best friend dead. She has spent nine months in jail awaiting trial. Now the time has come for her to enter the courtroom. How did Maja—popular, privileged, and a top student—become a cold-blooded killer in the eyes of the public? What did Maja do? Or is it what she failed to do that brought her here?

Malin Persson Giolito has written a perceptive portrayal of a teenage girl and a blistering indictment of a society that is coming apart. A work of great literary sensibility, Quicksand touches on wealth, class, immigration, and the games children play among themselves when parents are no longer attuned to their struggles.”

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Quicksand: What It Means to be a Human Being

“A stunning and poignant autobiographical look at the myriad experiences that shape a meaningful life, by the bestselling author of the Kurt Wallander mysteries.  
 
In January 2014, Henning Mankell received a diagnosis of lung cancer. Quicksand is a response to this shattering news—but it is not a memoir of destruction. Instead, it is a testament to a life fully lived, a tribute to the extraordinary but fleeting human journey that delivers both boundless opportunity and crucial responsibility. In a series of intimate vignettes, Mankell ranges over rich and varied reflections: of growing up in a small Swedish town, where he experiences a startling revelation on a winter morning as a young boy; of living hand-to-mouth during a summer in Paris as an ambitious young writer; of his work at a theater in Mozambique, where Lysistrata is staged in the midst of civil war; of chance encounters with men and women who changed his understanding of the world. Along the way, Mankell ponders the meaning of a good life, and the critically important ways we can shape the future of humanity if we are fortunate enough to have the choice. Vivid, clear-eyed, and breathtakingly beautiful, Quicksand is an invaluable parting gift from a great man.”

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A Dry White Season

As startling and powerful as when first published more than two decades ago, André Brink's classic novel, A Dry White Season, is an unflinching and unforgettable look at racial intolerance, the human condition, and the heavy price of morality.

Ben Du Toit is a white schoolteacher in suburban Johannesburg in a dark time of intolerance and state-sanctioned apartheid. A simple, apolitical man, he believes in the essential fairness of the South African government and its policies—until the sudden arrest and subsequent ‘suicide’ of a black janitor from Du Toit's school. Haunted by new questions and desperate to believe that the man's death was a tragic accident, Du Toit undertakes an investigation into the terrible affair—a quest for the truth that will have devastating consequences for the teacher and his family, as it draws him into a lethal morass of lies, corruption, and murder.

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A Planet for Rent

“What 1984 did for surveillance, and Fahrenheit 451 did for censorship, A Planet for Rent does for tourism. It’s a wildly imaginative book and one that, while set in the future, has plenty of relevance to the present.”

“A Planet for Rent criticizes Cuban reality in thinly veiled terms. Cuban defectors leave the country not on rafts but on 'unlawful space launches'; prostitutes are 'social workers'; foreigners are 'xenoids'; and Cuba is a ‘planet whose inhabitants have stopped believing in the future.’ The book is particularly critical of the government-run tourism industry of the ’90s, which welcomed and protected tourists—often at the expense of Cubans—and whose legacy can still be felt today.” - The NY Times

“The most successful and controversial Cuban science fiction writer of all time, Yoss is known for his acerbic portraits of the island under Communism. In his bestselling A Planet for Rent, Yoss pays homage to Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles and 334 by Thomas M. Disch. A critique of Cuba in the 90s, after the fall of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, A Planet for Rent marks the debut in English of an astonishingly brave and imaginative Latin American voice.”

”Some of the best sci-fi written anywhere since the 1970s.… A Planet for Rent, like its author, a bandana-wearing, muscly roquero, is completely unique: riotously funny, scathing, perceptive, and yet also heart-wrenchingly compassionate.… Instantly appealing.” - The Nation

(Group read suggestion from Mia DeGiovine Chaveco, book club co-founder.)

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The Double Life of Fidel Castro

“Sánchez's nonstop revelations, energetic voice, & cognitive dissonance are liable to entertain and intrigue almost any audience.” - Library Journal

“In The Double Life of Fidel Castro, one of Castro's soldiers of 17 years breaks his silence and shares his memoir of years of service, and eventual imprisonment and torture for displeasing the notorious dictator, and his dramatic escape from Cuba.

Responsible for protecting the former Prime Minister of Cuba for two decades, Juan Reinaldo Sánchez was party to Castro’s secret life. From the ghost town in which guerrillas from several continents were trained, to his immense personal fortune—including a huge property portfolio, a secret paradise island, and seizure of public money—as well as his relationship with his family and his nine children from five different partners.

Sanchez's tell-all expose reveals countless state secrets and the many sides of the Cuban monarch: genius war leader in Nicaragua and Angola, paranoid autocrat at home, master spy, Machiavellian diplomat, and accomplice to drug traffickers. This extraordinary testimony makes us re-examine everything we thought we knew about the Cuban story and Fidel Castro.”

(Group read suggestion from Beth McCrea, book club co-founder.)

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The Fallen

“A powerful, unsettling portrait of ordinary family life in Cuba, Carlos Manuel Álvarez’s debut novel The Fallen is a masterful portrayal of a society in free fall.

Diego, the son, is disillusioned and bitter about the limited freedoms his country offers him. Mariana, the mother, is unwell and forced to relinquish her control over the home to her daughter, Maria, who has left school and is working as a chambermaid in one of the state-owned tourist hotels. The father, Armando, is a committed revolutionary who is sickened by the corruption he perceives all around him.

In meticulously charting the disintegration of a family, The Fallen offers a poignant reflection on contemporary Cuba and the clash of the ardent idealism of the old guard with the jaded pragmatism of the young.”

”A beautiful and painful novel that demonstrates the power of fiction to pursue the unutterable.” - Alejandro Zambra, author of Multiple Choice

(Group read suggestion from Mia DeGiovine Chaveco, book club co-founder.)

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Havana Fever

“The finest crime-fiction writer in the Spanish language.” - The London Times

“Full of atmosphere and descriptions to savour, this is as much a life-affirming tribute to Havana as a fine novel of death and detection.” - The Independent

“Mario Conde has retired from the police force and makes a living trading in antique books. Havana is now flooded with dollars, populated by pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, and other hunters of the night. In the book collection of a rich Cuban who fled after the fall of Batista, Conde discovers an article about Violeta del Rio, a beautiful bolero singer of the 1950s who disappeared mysteriously. A murder soon follows.

This is a crime story set in today’s darker Cuba, but it is also an evocation of the Havana of Batista, the city of a hundred night clubs where the paths of Marlon Brando and Meyer Lansky crossed.

Probably Leonardo Padura’s best book, Havana Fever is many things: a suspenseful crime novel, a cruel family saga, and an ode to literature and his beloved, ravaged island.”

(A special thank you to book club member, Elke Richelsen for the group read suggestion.)

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Havana is a Really Big City

“These humorous and poignant stories that illustrate everyday life in contemporary Havana will challenge the reader's assumptions about the Cuban reality.

Themes of class, race, gender, and sexuality are artfully interwoven in humorous and poignant narratives that make the reader pause to rethink her/his views or assumptions about Cuba and about life. This groundbreaking collection of her work, most of which is available for the first time in English translation, includes La habana es una ciudad bien grande in its entirety as well as other selected stories.

Wildcat21 says: ‘Yanez portrays Cuba as a familiar place, the well-known small-town feel. Each story introduces us to a character, ranging from children to adults to a dog, who tells us a personal account of the highs and lows of life. Each story is so different, covering a variety of themes such as sadness for lost loved ones, unhappiness with life, coming of age, and love. These stories are original and down to earth, and the emotions that flow from character to character and story to story are completely relatable. Yanez weaves so much emotion into such few words. She writes as though she's a good friend just telling you stories.’

(A special thank you to book club member, Beth Cummings for the group read suggestion.)

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A Legend of the Future

“This mesmerizing novel, reminiscent of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, is a science-fiction survival story that captures the intense pressures—economic, ideological, and psychological—inside Communist Cuba.

A Legend of the Future takes place inside a spaceship on a groundbreaking mission to Titan, one of Saturn’s moons; back home, a final conflict between warring superpowers threatens the fate of the Earth. When disaster strikes the ship, the crewmembers are forced into a grand experiment in psychological and emotional conditioning, in which they face not just their innermost fears, but the ultimate sacrifice—their very humanity.”

“Finally, we have the chance to read a landmark work from one of Cuba’s greatest science fiction writers…. Steady build-up of suspense, believable depiction of characters under intense stress, unique take on human space exploration…. If you like intensely psychological sci-fi that deftly piles on the suspense, this novel’s for you. It will blow your mind in a good way. The boundaries between dream and reality, and then between human and machine, almost melt away as the story progresses. And it is de Rojas’s skillful manipulation of those boundaries that makes A Legend of the Future so addictive.” - SF Signal, 4.5-star review

(Group read suggestion from Beth McCrea, book club co-founder.)

Note: The publisher made the poor decision to include thoughts in quotes in the novel so you can't easily differentiate between thoughts & conversation. There are also a few other small issues, however, the story is good enough to overcome these minor faults. Get through the 1st few chapters & you’ll see why this novel is a staff recommendation.

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The Room

“Hilarious and chilling.” -Times of London

“Daily grind got you down? Escape into this Swedish dark comedy.” -O, the Oprah Magazine, Ten Titles to Pick Up Now

”Bjorn is a compulsive, meticulous bureaucrat who discovers a secret room at the government office where he works—a secret room that no one else in his office will acknowledge. When Bjorn is in his room, what his co-workers see is him standing by the wall and staring off into space looking dazed, relaxed, and decidedly creepy. Bjorn's bizarre behavior eventually leads his co-workers to try and have him fired, but Bjorn will turn the tables on them with help from his secret room.

Debut author Jonas Karlsson doesn't leave a word out of place in this brilliant, bizarre, delightful take on how far we will go—in a world ruled by conformity—to live an individual and examined life.”

(Group read suggestion from Beth McCrea, book club co-founder.)

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The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

“The international publishing sensation--over six million copies sold worldwide!

A reluctant centenarian much like Forrest Gump (if Gump were an explosives expert with a fondness for vodka) decides it's not too late to start over . . .

After a long and eventful life, Allan Karlsson ends up in a nursing home, believing it to be his last stop. The only problem is that he's still in good health, and in one day, he turns 100. A big celebration is in the works, but Allan really isn't interested (and he'd like a bit more control over his vodka consumption). So he decides to escape. He climbs out the window in his slippers and embarks on a hilarious and entirely unexpected journey, involving, among other surprises, a suitcase stuffed with cash, some unpleasant criminals, a friendly hot-dog stand operator, and an elephant (not to mention a death by elephant).

It would be the adventure of a lifetime for anyone else, but Allan has a larger-than-life backstory: Not only has he witnessed some of the most important events of the twentieth century, but he has actually played a key role in them. Starting out in munitions as a boy, he somehow finds himself involved in many of the key explosions of the twentieth century and travels the world, sharing meals and more with everyone from Stalin, Churchill, and Truman to Mao, Franco, and de Gaulle. Quirky and utterly unique, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared has charmed readers across the world.”

(A special thank you to book club member, Nicole Viola Hinz-Schouwstra for the group read suggestion.)

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A Darker Shade of Sweden

“A wonderful collection of stories by Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell, and over a dozen other masters of Nordic noir.

Ever since Stieg Larsson shone a light on Swedish crime writing with his Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, readers around the world have devoured fiction by Scandinavian masters of suspense. A Darker Shade of Sweden includes an assortment of outstanding crime fiction—never before published in English and in some cases brand-new to this volume—from Larsson and a wide range of other talents including Henning Mankell, the creator of Kurt Wallander; Åsa Larsson; Eva Gabrielsson; Inger Frimansson; Åke Edwardson; Sara Stridsberg; Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö; and more. Also included is an introduction by Edgar nominee John-Henri Holmberg, exploring the history of these stellar authors and their contributions to crime writing.”

“Gripping. . . . These unsettlingly dark tales reaffirm the dominance of Swedish writers with original crime fiction.” -The Sun (UK)

Side note: We recommend reading just the wonderful stories themselves & not the background info supplied for each story. Many find the editor’s end-notes repetitious & unnecessary.

(A special thank you to book club member, Elke Richelsen for the group read suggestion.)

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