Reviews
Curated and edited by Darcy Hurford
REVIEW
Stridens skönhet och sorg. Första världskriget i 212 korta kapitel
Peter Englund’s book shows that there is still much to be said and new perspectives to be taken on the First World War.
REVIEW
Barndomstolen
The poet Ulf Karol Olov Nilsson knows the extent of power a word can hold. In this collection, the absurd is juxtaposed with the tragic.
REVIEW
Gå inte ensam ut i natten
Kjell Westö is a first-class storyteller and you don’t have to be interested in Finnish history to enjoy his books.
REVIEW
Toffs bok
Kalle Dixelius offers a modern version of our very oldest stories: a young man living in poor conditions feels a strong inner urge to embark on a dangerous and often life-threatening quest in search of a deeper meaning in life.
REVIEW
Människor helt utan betydelse
The thoughts of Johan Kling's protagonist in this novel are far less meaningless than the talk of Habitat, house prices and holidays in Portugal which make up the conversations around him.
REVIEW
De fattiga i Łódź
One of the many triumphs of Steve Sem-Sandberg's narrative is that it shows how the mechanics of persecution operate within a society of the persecuted.
REVIEW
Den orolige mannen
Henning Mankell's outstanding detective continues to perform in this novel, but the real subject matter – the troubled man of the title – is Wallander as a person rather than as a police officer.
REVIEW
I den innersta kretsen
There can be few more appealing places than the Stockholm archipelago on a beautiful summer’s day. In this novel Viveca Sten once again takes the reader into the heart of the community on the island of Sandhamn.
REVIEW
Den falske vännen
Henrik Nilsson's clever and stylish debut novel offers us an exciting, multi-layered tale set in fin de siècle Vienna, in which books are the real heroes and Vatican bankers and Papal conspiracy theories have to take their allotted place in the literary jigsaw.
REVIEW
De vackra kusinerna
The unique thing about Mikaela Sundström is the style of her writing. Reading her novel is like meeting a gossipy neighbour after coming back to your home town, who wants to tell you everything about everybody, leaving you amused, confused and quite possibly, misinformed.
REVIEW
Is och vatten, vatten och is
This novel confirms Majgull Axelsson’s position as one of Sweden’s most interesting and accomplished contemporary storytellers.
REVIEW
Mitt liv som pingvin
Katarina Mazetti's social-conscience-laced comedy shows that love between two people is not instantly recognisable but can look like just about anything, and human beings are like icebergs, nine-tenths hidden beneath the surface.
REVIEW
En lycklig liten ö
Lars Sund’s latest novel will provide book circles everywhere with endless hours of fun and games, and they will be amply rewarded, for this is the work of an unusually gifted novelist writing with confidence, playfulness and subtlety.
REVIEW
En vass obändig längtan. En norrländsk roman
Marianne Jeffmar's novel tells the love story of Johan and Brita who meet each other in a vicarage in the northern province of Ångermanland in the 1920s.
REVIEW
Jag vill inte tjäna
Ola Larsmo believes that the novel can be an effective vehicle for tackling painful conflicts, cover-ups and scandals in ‘the recent past.’ His own contribution to the genre is about misogyny and prostitution seen through the eyes of a physician in nineteenth-century Uppsala.
REVIEW
The Crazy Swede: en sann historia
Per Wirtén's journalistic account of maritime adventurer Anders Svedlund's life.

















