2013:2

A shadowy, treacherous epoch, when Europe stood on the brink of war and a dark cloud of fear and intrigue – both personal and political – hung over the continent like an impending plague of locusts.

Seldom can we read a spy story of such psychological depth.

A fictional account of the writer and poet Karin Boye’s time in 1930s Berlin.

She discovers that there is blood on her dress, but she is having her period, so perhaps that is the reason? Still, she hides the dress in her closet. The bodies of her parents are found, and she is arrested.

A story of forbidden love and ostracism.

Söderlind has taken her inspiration from a dark but horrifyingly real chapter in the history of Ångermanland. The plot revolves around Stake Mountain, a hill on which 71 local women, sentenced to death for witchcraft, were beheaded and burnt in the 1670s.

The book is very much a meta-novel. Its nine chapters consist of nine parables, corresponding perhaps to the nine leaves torn from the centre of his long-dead father’s poetry notebook. The notebook had recently come into the author’s hands, even though he had long believed that his strongly religious mother had burnt the notebook. To her way of thinking, poetry was sinful. Parables, however, were acceptable.

Personalities as varied as Greta Garbo, Linnaeus and Goethe; a disastrous Nobel Prize ceremony, desperate rides in stolen cars, the snow-covered roads of the Arctic Circle.

The butterfly effect of the title is the scientific theory that a single occurrence, no matter how tiny, can change the course of the universe forever.

You imagine that, within her, Violencia hosts a continuous never-ending party.

‘Madness’ is not just an idea, but rather the essence of the book.

He has an eye for the little absurdities of life: Helen invites her new work colleague to dinner hoping to pair him up with her friend, but her intentions are thwarted by her own husband getting too enchanted with the guy.

The first step of the plan consists of buying a tea plantation in Darjeeling.

The influence of English crime fiction on Maria Lang’s novels is obvious: the closed circle of suspects, suspense, and the solution reached through use of the little grey cells with pipe-smoking as inducement to concentration.

Both prosecutors end up turning to crime to reach their goals.

The quiet underdog with hidden qualities, a loser suddenly finding that he or she can make a difference in a situation where former tormentors now have to rely on him or her.

Illustrated in rich swathes of violets, purples and blues, this picture book aims to help young children come to terms with fear of shadows and the dark.

A fine piece of investigative authorship.

A perfect combination for those wanting to get a grip on their own issues with ‘the system’.

‘Judaism is a humanity unto itself – as diverse and heterogeneous as all of humanity on our planet.’

Drawing on the latest research, this volume is a welcome addition to the comparative histories on Scandinavia and the Second World War.