Nordic Snø & Íss

While I haven’t formally run my Nordic reading month this year keeping it casual, I offer many thanks to those blog friends who have still included it in their own reading plans (Chris reviewed The Silence of the Sea by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir and Lizzy reviewed Hunter in Huskvarna and other stories by Sara Stridsberg. Do let Read More

Termush by Sven Holm

Translated by Sylvia Clayton While I’m not formally running Nordic FINDS this year, not really having time for the admin, I still like reading Nordic books during the darker months of the year, and I squeezed in this Danish dystopia at the end of December, and if you wish to use the tag #NordicFINDS24 feel Read More

Thirty Days of Darkness by Jenny Lund Madsen

Translated by Megan E. Turney This debut novel is already a prize winner in Madsen’s home country of Denmark, and it’s easy to see why. At first we love to hate the protagonist, Hannah, an established writer of much praised and exquisitely crafted prose novellas, who has fallen into that mid-career slump; her backlist is Read More

The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup #NordicFINDS23

Translated by Caroline Waight I’ve had this book recommended to me by so many Scandi-crime afficionados, that it seemed a good choice to pick for a #NordicFINDS23 readalong… Hmm, maybe not such a good decision: for not only is it nasty, it is so twisty that it was nearly impossible to tweet as I went Read More

This Should be Written in the Present Tense by Helle Helle #NordicFINDS23

Translated by Martin Aitken Susan recommended this novella to me last year (her review here), so I acquired a copy – thinking ahead for this year! What an odd book this is. Our narrator, Dorte, chronicles her everyday life for us and remembers previous relationships – that’s it. It is simple, yet hypnotically compelling. The Read More

NORDIC FINDS is back for Jan 2023

After the success of my first Nordic FINDS Reading Project this January (wrap-up post here, dedicated page here), I’ve been asked if I was bringing it back to make it a regular reading month. Well, I couldn’t resist! This year I dedicated the first five weeks of 2022 to one of the five countries per Read More

Looking forward to #WITMonth 2022

August is #WITMonth – celebrating Women in Translation, hosted by Meytal, who has been flying the flag for WIT for many years now. It has a dedicated website HERE. Traditionally, in preparation I look back at my reading of books by Women in Translation since the end of last summer, and I was surprised that even without Read More

#NordicFINDS – It’s a wrap!

Phew! What a great start to the reading year I’ve had. Dedicating one week per Nordic country has been fascinating and I’ve been astounded by the variety of books covered between us – a huge thank you, (but especially to Lizzy and Liz who’ve read loads each). Thank you also to those who visited and Read More

#NordicFINDS – Denmark Week – A Quirky Novella

Minna Needs Rehearsal Space by Dorthe Nors Translated by Misha Hoekstra Some of you will have come across Dorthe Nors from her novel Mirror Shoulder Signal which was shortlisted for the International Booker in 2017 (my full review here). In Mirror… Sonja, a newly single forty-something, decides to learn to drive as part of starting to Read More

#NordicFINDS – Denmark Week – An unusual crime novel

The Murder of Halland by Pia Juul Translated by Martin Aitken I didn’t want to wake Halland; he had to be up soon anyway. After going to the loo, I went back into the living room and collapsed on the sofa under a blanket. When I opened my eyes again, I knew a sound had Read More

#NordicFINDS – Denmark Week – My Gateway Book

Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Peter Høeg Translated by F. David Being published in English translation in 1993, this was the first Nordic novel I knowingly read, acquiring the paperback when it was published in 1994. In my thirties then, I was beginning to expand my reading, having moved on from the diet of Read More

#NordicFINDS – Denmark week

I chose Denmark for the first week of my Nordic reading as I was ultra-keen to revisit Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Peter Høeg, and it is alphabetically the first country – an approach I abandoned when setting the dates for each country (which ended up being random, not even in FINDS order). Apart Read More

#NordicFINDS is here!

NB: The wrap post for #NordicFINDS with the full list of all books reviewed can be seen here. Finally, my project for five weeks of reading Nordic literature is here. ‘FINDS’ – stands for Finland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark & Sweden. For me, reading Nordic literature really began in the 1990s, when a few modern novels began Read More

Two SF Novellas for #NovNov #SciFiMonth

Another opportunity to tick two boxes with one blog post. This time two superb novellas for Novellas in November and both SF for Sci Fi Month. The Employees: A Workplace novel of the 22nd Century by Olga Ravn Translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken This is the most unconventionally structured book I’ve read this Read More

Weekend Miscellany

GoodReads Challenge I’ve done it! Pressure’s off now, except I’d like to beat my best ever total of 142 in 2018! With a clutch of novellas (see more below) that might be doable too! However, I doubt I’ll reach my best ever total page count of over 41k from 2016, I’m currently in the 31k Read More

Planning Ahead!

Last week on Twitter I posed a question. I asked: Hi my bookish Twitter friends. Just wondering… There are reading months for French, German, Spanish/Portuguese lit in translation. Does anyone host an Italian or Nordic/Scandi one. If not, I’d be willing, which would you prefer? I got a good response, but predictably, it was divided! Read More

Year End Review #4: In Translation

I’ve also decided to give books I read in translation a separate mention this year, if only to try and spur me on to do better in 2018. I was shocked to find that I’ve only read fourteen novels in translation this year, just over 10% of my reading; last year I read 27, (of Read More

Two books about Learning to Drive…

While reading the first of this pair, I was perusing my shelves and found another book that was nominally about starting late in ‘learning to drive’ so the obvious thing was to read both and review them together. These books were especially appropriate to my own situation – I didn’t take my car driving test Read More