For January, Annabel at AnnaBookBel.net challenged us to read Nordic literature. I needed no second bidding. Nevertheless, I hadn’t expected to have as many Nordic books on my TBR as I did. In fact, I have reallocated some of them to read later in the year because the month just wasn’t long enough to fit them all in. And it certainly wasn’t long enough to write my reviews, so they will be added whenever I get the chance. I also got carried away and listened to a couple of radio programmes about Iceland (because I didn’t have any books set there), I listened to Danish music. Then I realised that the (relatively) recent ‘lifestyle trend’ of Hygge was Danish and rushed off to the library to get yet more books. I do love a reading mission!

TBR pile problems
Having gathered together two piles of books and some vaguely Scandinavian-style accessories (some of which may have come from IKEA), I attempted to take a photo. Unfortunately my cat Midnight decided it looked like a cozy corner to sit, so my first attempts were thwarted. Trying to make the best of a bad job, I posted the photo to Twitter to see if anyone could guess what was on the pile, but only Annabel hazarded a guess.

Nordic books TBR (and an imposter)
It wasn’t until the cat had moved off and I’d taken the photo I originally planned that I realised there was a ‘deliberate mistake’; one of the books is not Nordic at all, but by a Dutch author. It ended up in the pile because the January theme for a BookCrossing challenge is ‘clean and new’. So these were my Nordic-themed books at the start of the month, with their current status.

- SWEDEN: Inge en Mira (Two Women) (1999), Marianne Fredriksson, translated into Dutch by Janny Middelbeek-Oortgiessen. Read and reviewed on Goodreads. 4 stars.
- FINLAND: Purge (2008), Sofi Oksanen, translated by Lola Rogers. I’m still reading this because I had a disaster: my copy of this was a second copy found at the BookCrossing Convention in Mainz in 2019, which has never been read. Unbeknownst to the person who passed it on to me, this copy was misbound, missing one section and repeating another. Very frustrating! I have ordered it from interlibrary loan.
- SWEDEN: Verteller van de wind (Chronicler of the Wind) (1995), Henning Mankell, translated into Dutch by Cora Polet. Set in Mozambique, about a boy living on the street, telling his story in the last nine days of his life. Still to be read.
- FINLAND: De grens (The Limit) (2006), Riikka Pulkkinen, translated into Dutch by Lieven Ameel. Postponed until March (theme: maps).
- NORWAY: A Man in Love (My Struggle 2) (2009), Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated by Don Bartlett. How does a self-absorbed man manage to make his over-detailed life story so compelling? I’m glad my husband doesn’t write about me and our family like this. I haven’t quite finished it yet, but it will probably be 4 stars.
- FINLAND: De huilende molenaar (The Howling Miller) (1981), Arto Paasilinna, translated into Dutch by Annemarie Raas. Saved for another year.
- DENMARK: De profeten in de eeuwigheidsheidfjord (The Prophets of Eternal Fjord) (2012), Kim Leine, translated into Dutch by Gerard Cruys. Saved for another year.
- FINLAND: Moominsummer Madness (1954), Tove Jansson, translated by Thomas Warburton. Read and enjoyed. Still to review.
- SWEDEN: My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises (also known as My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry) (2013), Fredrik Backman. This features a possibly autistic character and fairytale elements. I hope to be able to read it later this year.
- SWEDEN: Een zeldzame vogel [A rare bird] (1986), Jostein Gaarder translated into Dutch by Lucy Pijttersen, Kim Snoeijing. Postponed until February (bird theme).
- SWEDEN: The Solitaire Mystery (1990), Jostein Gaarder, translated by Sarah Jane Hails. Postponed until April (theme: games and sports).
- SWEDEN: We noemen hem Anna [We Call Him Anna] (1987), Peter Pohl, translated into Dutch by Cora Polet. I decided to pass this on at a BookCrossing meeting without reading it. The theme of bullying and suicide did not appeal.
- SWEDEN: Ronja de roversdochter (Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter) (1981), Astrid Lindgren, translated into Dutch by Rita Törnqvist-Verschuur, ill. Ilon Wikland. Still reading.
Red herring: De nieuwe wereld van William Tinker [The New World of William Tinker] (2007), Hans Ulrich.
Nordic listening
As I didn’t have anything Icelandic to read, I decided to listen to something about Iceland on BBC Sounds. I came up with the following two:
- Iceland’s Dark Lullabies by Andri Snaer Magnason. I searched on ‘Iceland’ and up it popped. Dark yuletide tales and ethereal music. Oddly, there was an excerpt from Britten’s Ceremony of Carols, if I remember correctly; hardly suitable for Icelandic tales.
- Hulda’s Cafe by Tiffany Murray, narrated by Rachel Stirling. Five tales from Grindavik, a place of volcanoes and earthquakes, apparently the happiest town in Iceland. I loved the feisty Hulda who seems not at all averse to stripping off her clothes and posing on the lava to oblige her erstwhile lover. There’s a refugee who only speaks in bird calls until she wants to, irritating tourists who ignore instructions to stay off the rare moss (in which Hulda’s lover once disgracefully carved her name), puffin rescue and more. I may have the details wrong; that’s the disadvantage of audio for me, but this was a heartwarming group of connected tales. Recommended! Bonus fact: I learnt that there is a bridge in Iceland that improbably connects two continents over the Mid Atlantic Ridge, linking the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates.
That’s all for now. I will return very soon with more Nordic reading and listening. Thanks for the inspiration, Annabel!