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I haven't read much Nordic literature, but I'm reading a good one at the moment. I know it's been very fashionable lately, which must mean there's a lot of crap as well as the great ones! So I'd love to grab people's recommendations for best Nordic literature..

I'm nominating the one I'm reading right now: The Seducer

Ronia, the Robber's Daughter by Astrid Lindgren

Hedda Gabler , A Doll's House and other plays by Henrik Ibsen

OK, there's Ibsen (and I'm pretty sure there's another playwrite I should remember)... and there's mysteries. afaict, the Scands only write mysteries:

Henning Mankell
Jo Nesbø

and of course Stieg Larsson

To the extent that Larsson's characters make fun of Astrid Lindgren...

I find it all a little, well, Nordic - bleak and wintery.

Which books would you recommend for the shelf, Derek? Although, I'm not sure whether those comments really count as "recommendations" as such! :)

I haven't read much in the way of Nordic literature, but I did enjoy Let the Right One In and Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Lindqvist. They were fresh approaches to genres that can be overcome with cliches and stereotypes.

YES! Love this thread!

Knut Hamsun is all-round awesome, not just Norway awesome. Plus he's worth about 50 hipster points in American Apparel Top Trumps.

I made the second part up.

Got a job interview in Trondheim next week- definitely taking all book recommendations very seriously :D

Ruby, I have The Seducer and sequels on my bookshelf. Glad to hear that you're enjoying it.

I haven't read this yet but plan on doing so before the end of the year: We, the Drowned.

Leo wrote: "Got a job interview in Trondheim next week- definitely taking all book recommendations very seriously :D..."

Seriously? The Seducer is partly set in Trondheim. And it mentions Knut Hamsun. Weird. Or Norway is very small. :)

Sven - I can't believe I forgot about Handling the Undead. I love that book!

Petra wrote: "Ruby, I have The Seducer and sequels on my bookshelf. Glad to hear that you're enjoying it.

I haven't read this yet but plan on doing so before the end of the year: We, the Drowned."

Just reading the synopsis for We, the Drowned and saw this: "..from the roughest bars in Tasmania.."
I wasn't aware there were rough bars in Tasmania. I thought there were only hippies, hillbillies and old people! Who knew?
Sorry - But I am Australian. It's my prerogative and sacred duty to take the piss out of Tasmanians. :P

PS - I have been to Launceston and it's actually really lovely.

Ruby wrote: "Seriously? The Seducer is partly set in Trondheim. And it mentions Knut Hamsun"

Cool! I'll try and find it today :-)

Ruby wrote: "Which books would you recommend for the shelf, Derek? Although, I'm not sure whether those comments really count as "recommendations" as such! :)"

Not really. I'm not that fond of Scandinavian mysteries, but my wife is, so I read a lot of them anyway.

Miss Julie by August Strindberg

Hans Christian Andersen!

I am not very familiar with Nordic literature (except The Millennium Trilogy), however these sound very interesting:

Hash - Torgny Lindgren

and

In the Wake - Per Petterson

Coming to this late... but Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg is wonderful. It's a thoughtful thriller/drama set in Copenhagen and parts of Greenland.

Doh! Of course, Smilla's Sense of Snow. I've read and enjoyed at least one other of Hoeg's. My wife has probably read all of them: she keeps getting them from the library but I can hardly keep up with my SFF reading if I read all of her books, too.

Borderliners is another book by Peter Høeg I've read and enjoyed.

All these books mentioned here are just perfect for those wintery nights. (Though being based in San Francisco, 'wintery' has a different connotation... guess that's why I find the snow-packed Nordic settings fascinating.)

Genevieve wrote: "Borderliners is another book by Peter Høeg I've read and enjoyed.

All these books mentioned here are just perfect for those wintery nights. (Though being based in San Francisco, 'wintery' has a di..."

Huh. I actually have that unread on my bookshelf. Might have to have another look at that..

Sigrid Undset for Kristin Lavransdatter 1

OK Ruby just steered me in this direction. I will ETA later, thinking hard what to recommend - and what is available in English but that should be less of a problem.

But I definitely second We, the Drowned. Hilarious but also very grim in parts. It is long journey, literally but also metaphorically. A great deal of historical facts mixed with the life of the people of a small town, the ups and spiraling downwards again. And as I have been told the picture of Denmark is done very accurate, and that a lot of research went into it.

Carsten Jensen is a storyteller but not exactly great with words, so it does have its length and its not crafted, just told, very down-to-earth style. Not sure if I can explain the difference? Actually I think his non-fiction books are superior but this one is definitely one of the best books coming out of Scandinavia in the recent years.

Ruby, you are right. Norway is that small :D But so is Denmark, I almost bumped into Carsten Jensen in town, barely avoiding a collision.

Noone mentioned Karl Ove Knausgård Norwegian bad-boy :D I have read a great chunk of part one of his six-volume fictionalized auto-biography My Struggle: Book One. He is a whiny a**hole (pardon my language) but boy he can write. It caused quite a fuss. He wrote all his family members and friends into his books and it went so bad that he more less fled from Norway to Sweden. The Germans re-named the title since they didn´t want to have it associated with the more "famous" one Mein Kampf. Of course he named his book deliberately so.

Recommended for Proust fans, stylewise anyway, where you have to go with the flow to take it in.

His other book A Time for Everything is a re-telling of some Bible-stories, mixed with a great deal of fictional re-search of angels, fake historical persons etc. In parts he is overdoing it but his prose is strong and if you believe in angels or not is not the question because his arguements and writing is so great that you will believe in angels after reading this book. Note: UK/US edition have different titles.

Per Petterson was mentioned already before and justly so. His writing is spare and precise, I´d say Don DeLillo fans might get the most out of it. His is a great stylist and he gets a great deal of information in his sentences without overloading them. My favorite is Out Stealing Horses, a coming-of-age tale but with a strong father/son conflict, World War II ties and the role of Norwegians in the war. But every book of his great, not just this one.

Oooooooh. I do love asshole bad boys....

Did I mention how welcome you are in the group, Ylva? :)
Very exciting to discover something as controversial as that!

Ruby wrote: "Did I mention how welcome you are in the group, Ylva? :)
Very exciting to discover something as controversial as that!"

Haha, thank you Ruby. I have just noticed that you have added it too, but your TBR pile of books is huuuge ^^ yes, I think the bad ass boy :D is one of the best writers in Scandinavia these days. But his damn "Min Kamp" is ridicously long. All six volumes are approximately 4000 pages, I think. He sure is ambitious!,grrr...

So where would you recommend starting with his books then? I'm a bit daunted by your telling me you've read one-chunk-of-one-tome-of-a-six-part-epic! Yikes! Maybe start with the other novel you mentioned?

PS - It's not only TBR'd but on my "must-buy" shelf. That as supposed to be my top 100 must-haves. But it has recently grown :(

Actually it grew shortly after asking this group to help me cull it. They're not good at NOT recommending things!

The A Time for Everything is a stand-alone novel so it would be "logical" to start with it. I don´t think anything else is available in translation, but I am not sure about it without checking.

The six-volume Min kamp 1 is equal to a long-term project. I know some friends who have read up to volume three but noone I know has read all of them yet. It is just getting too much. And you sure have time with this one since its only partially translated up to now into English.

I can't even imagine what a six-part fictionalised autobiography would look like!

There's another book of his in English on Book Depository (which isn't on GR) - called, "A Death In The Family". I wonder if this is actually a volume of Min Kamp?

Ruby wrote: "There's another book of his in English on Book Depository (which isn't on GR) - called, "A Death In The Family". I wonder if this is actually a volume of Min Kamp?"

I have just checked and yes, its the first part. Interesting, I have never seen it mentioned any other way as "My struggle" but they may have changed the title, since the implications are a bit on the heavy side.



There is an extra section called "The Min Kamp books", you need to scroll a bit.

Ah - Thanks for that. I'm compelled to read these now..

I do have quite a few books by Nordic writers sitting on the shelf, but I can't recommend them since I haven't read them yet myself. Has anyone got anything else Nordic to recommend? Maybe my shelf will jog a few memories - some of these authors have admirers in this group, I'm sure: /review/list...

In the meantime, the books nominated so far are up on the group shelf here: /group/books...

Independent People by Halldór Laxness