Tag Archives: Norwegian Lit

What I’ve Been Reading Lately (July 2024)

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Welcome to another round of “What I’ve Been Reading Lately”. My focus these summer months is the reading challenge at work. All of the books this month check off a box (or more) for that challenge. I’ve tried as much as I can to choose books that cross over with other reading challenges, but with less success than I had hoped.

August is Women in Translation Month so I’m making an effort now to support that initiative again this year. For our summer reading challenge at work, one of the prompts is “A book by a woman in translation”. I’m happy to know that others at work are reading women in translation this summer as well!

How is your summer reading going?

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley (2022) 📖

Lucy Foley has long been on my TBR list. I have two Book of the Month selections by her! And no time like the present with the Olympics in Paris to read the one set in Paris. It was fun to be back in Paris and read snippets of French (after junior year abroad and a somewhat recent vacation there), but otherwise it was not a very thrilling story. I enjoyed it, but too many clues just happened to appear. This experience won’t keep me from reading my other Foley book, The Guest List, though, which friends have loved. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

  • Summer Reading Challenge: A book related to the Summer Olympics (featuring a sport or set in Paris)
  • Read My Own Shelf: Unread BOTM selection

The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali (2024) 📖

When I saw this was a Book of the Month selection for June, I didn’t hesitate to select it because I had just seen that the author would be at a local bookstore to discuss it. I had read her previous book, The Stationery Shop, which I enjoyed, and the premise of The Lion Women of Tehran intrigued me, and it didn’t disappoint. It was an engaging and moving story of friendship, betrayal, and finally redemption between two girls from very different backgrounds in Iran. It spanned decades (1950s to 1980s) and provided insight into a turbulent history that is still unfamiliar to me.  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

  • Summer Reading Challenge: Free Choice
  • Book Voyage: Read Around the World: Middle East (Iran)
  • #DiversityAcrossGenres: MENA/General or Historical Fiction

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney (2017) 🎧
Narrated by Xe Sands

This book takes place in a day, December 31, 1984, to be exact, but it actually spans decades as 85-year-old Lillian goes for a walk around New York City and reminisces on her life. She has lived a full life as a poet, the highest paid advertising woman in America, wife, mother, and divorcée. She was an impressive woman but it came at a cost. I loved her strong and vibrant personality and admired all her interactions with various people along her walk. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

  • Summer Reading Challenge: Takes place in a day AND Book with a character over 60
  • Book Voyage: Read Around the World: North America (New York City)

Sandwich by Catherine Newman (2024) 📖

I had read rave reviews about this one and surprisingly my hold at the library became available much earlier than I expected so I jumped at the opportunity to read it. It takes place over a week during the summer when Rocky, a 54-year-old woman, is on the family’s annual vacation to Cape Cod with her husband, young adult children and a girlfriend, and elderly parents. She is menopausal and nostalgic — and maybe she was too much so that I was turned off a bit. I did laugh out loud at some parts and enjoyed their multigenerational family time, but I wasn’t blown away by it as much as I thought I would be.  ⭐️⭐️⭐️

  • Summer Reading Challenge: Food in the title

Drømmen om et tre (Klimakvartetten #4) by Maja Lunde (2022) 📖
(The Dream of a Tree, available in English translation October 2024)

This is the finale to The Climate Quartet, a loosely connected series of books that each explores a different climate issue. This one is about seeds and features the Global Seed Vault located on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the Arctic Svalbard archipelago. The story takes place in 2110 and is about a small group of people living there. They live in isolation having cut off contact with the rest of the world where, due to climate issues, hunger is a constant concern. I loved being immersed in the setting of Svalbard and it was interesting to see how subject matter and characters from the earlier books come together in this one.  ⭐️⭐️⭐️

What have you been reading lately?

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What I’ve Been Reading Lately (February 2024)

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Welcome to another round of “What I’ve Been Reading Lately.” I normally try to get this out mid-month, but I needed a couple of more days to wrap it up this time. I continue to move forward without a 2024 iteration of my yearly Scandinavian/Nordic reading challenge, but I aim to have something in place by the end of March.

In the meantime, I’m motivated by challenges I’ve already committed to, in particular the #DiversityAcrossGenres reading challenge, and reading off my own shelf which certainly includes Scandinavian books. Continue reading →

Related posts:

  1. Introducing the 2021 #ScandiReadingChallenge
  2. What I’ve Been Reading Lately (May 2023)
  3. Introducing Reading Challenge 2023: Nordic Literature

What I’ve Been Reading Lately (September 2023)

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In September, my main focus was nonfiction, but I threw in some fun fiction genres outside my comfort zone as well. Last year, I was introduced to a new reading challenge, #sakprosaseptember, a nonfiction reading challenge hosted by Norwegian bookstagrammer readygoread during the month of September  (“sakprosa” means nonfiction in Norwegian). I didn’t used to read a lot of nonfiction, but in the last couple of years, I’ve noticed I’ve been drawn to it more and more and welcome the opportunity to read more of it. So once again I participated in #sakprosaseptember (running through October 15) with its various nonfiction reading prompts. Continue reading →

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  1. What I’ve Been Reading Lately (May 2023)
  2. Introducing Reading Challenge 2023: Nordic Literature
  3. Introducing the 2021 #ScandiReadingChallenge

 What I’ve Been Reading Lately & #WITmonth (August 2023)

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Another big reading month for me in which the summer book bingo happening at work continued to be the prime motivating factor. Needless to say, I’ve got some catching up to do this fall for other reading challenges!

August was Women in Translation Month. I was able to read two books by women in translation, but they were not ones on my initial TBR list. I had pulled out a stack of three Scandinavian books – a Norwegian one, a Swedish one, and a Danish one – but none of them were the ones I ended up reading. I did begin the Norwegian one but had to set it aside because it wasn’t working for me at the time. Instead I picked up a collection of short stories by an Argentinian author which hit the spot. And then I moved on to a different Norwegian author with a book that unexpectedly met a prompt for my 2023 Nordic Literature Reading Challenge. Both of those were great reads, and I look forward to revisiting the original stack this fall. Continue reading →

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  3. What I’ve Been Reading Lately & Another Virtual Book Event (June 2020)

What I’ve Been Reading Lately (February 2023)

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Welcome to another round of “What I’ve Been Reading Lately”. Last month, I finally completed my 2022 Scandinavian Reading Challenge with a book that spanned several decades, and it was a very satisfying way to wrap up the read-through-the-decades challenge. Continue reading →

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  1. Introducing Reading Challenge 2023: Nordic Literature
  2. What I’ve Been Reading Lately (December 2021) & #ScandiReadingChallenge Update 
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Introducing Reading Challenge 2023: Nordic Literature

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My passion project, the yearly Scandinavian Reading Challenge, “celebrated” its fifth year in 2022. I started it for myself (and anyone else who wanted to join) as an incentive to get to know Scandinavian authors better and to read Scandinavian books on a more regular basis. Every year I read 12+ Scandinavian (plus some other Nordic) books checking off various prompts.

This past year was the most intensive and focused year of them all. Inspired by the Book Girls’ Decades Reading Challenge, I read through the decades of the last century in Norway. A major component of this challenge was researching Norway’s history and finding books for each of the decades. It was enjoyable and satisfying but extremely time-consuming, and it took a toll on researching and reading books from other parts of the world, also a great passion of mine.

This past month has been an opportunity to evaluate how my reading was in 2022, in particular how it compared to my actual reading intentions for 2022. There were certainly some worthwhile highlights!

Highlights of 2022:

  • Learning about Norway’s 20th century history through books taking places all over Norway
  • Discovering Roy Jacobsen’s The Barrøy Chronicles series and loving it
  • Finally reading Norwegian authors Zeshan Shakar and Simon Stranger and looking forward to reading more of their work

Goals for 2023:

  • Read more new-to-me Nordic authors
  • Read more books in translation, especially women in translation, from around the world
  • As always, read off my shelves, both physical and digital
  • And also as always, try to share reading on Instagram more regularly

Reading Challenge for 2023 – Join Me!

In 2023, with my goals in mind, I’m taking a wider but less labor-intensive approach with the reading challenge. First of all, I’ve expanded the scope of the reading challenge to cover the whole Nordic region: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden which includes the autonomous territories of Greenland, Faroe Islands, and Åland, as well as Sápmi, the land of the indigenous Sámi people (which overlaps northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Kola Peninsula of Russia). Secondly, I’m limiting myself to a “mini challenge” with only six prompts, one for each of the Nordic countries plus Sápmi.

I invite you to join me in the 2023 Nordic Literature Reading Challenge by reading six unique Nordic books. For each of the five Nordic countries, match it with a different prompt, as listed below. For the Sámi selection, the prompt is free choice. Any book by or about the Sámi people and their history and culture, fiction or nonfiction, is fine.

Prompts

The Nordic Council’s Literature Prize has been awarded since 1962 and is awarded to a work of fiction written in one of the Nordic languages. It can be a novel, a drama, a collection of poems, a collection of short stories or a collection of essays that meet high literary and artistic requirements. View a list of winners with English translations.

The Dublin Literary Award has been presented annually since 1996 to a novel written in English or translated into English. The Award promotes excellence in world literature and is solely sponsored by Dublin City Council and administered by Dublin City Libraries. Nominations are submitted by libraries in major cities throughout the world. See a catalog of all nominees.

  • By or about a marginalized group in the Nordic region — indigenous, immigrant, minority, etc

  • Nonfiction — by a Nordic author or about a Nordic region

  • Nordic Noir — crime fiction by a Nordic author set in the Nordic region

  • Sámi Literature — free choice

This year I still want to expand my Scandinavian reading, but I also want more opportunity and time to venture beyond those borders. I want to enjoy books in a more relaxed way and read more of what I already have on my shelf, both physical and digital shelves, both for this challenge and the wider world.

Will you join me in adding some Nordic books or authors to your reading list this year?

Related posts:

  1. What I’ve Been Reading Lately (April 2023)
  2. What I’ve Been Reading Lately (December 2021) & #ScandiReadingChallenge Update 
  3. What I’ve Been Reading Lately (April 2024)

What I’ve Been Reading Lately & Reading Challenges Update (December 2022)

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I didn’t quite finish the year as I would have liked to reading-wise. Ideally, I would be more or less done with my 2022 Scandinavian Reading Challenge (I have one book left, a book spanning multiple decades or places) and I would have planned the next year’s challenge. However, unexpected family circumstances and an unplanned trip to Norway in December left me with little energy or opportunity to read, listen, or plan ahead. While in Norway, though, I did acquire some Norwegian books for later reading which was a bonus!

I did, however, complete my trip around the world for The Book Girls’ reading challenge, Book Voyage: Read Around the World. And my last selection was an unread Book of the Month pick; it’s always satisfying when I can check off another read for my forever ongoing #unreadBOTMchallenge. I’ll certainly do another round of Book Voyage in 2023, but this year also, I’ll be skipping around and not following their order. Continue reading →

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  3. What I’ve Been Reading Lately (December 2021) & #ScandiReadingChallenge Update 

What I’ve Been Reading Lately (November 2022)

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Welcome to my latest reading update. As the year nears its end, I’m focused on completing my two main reading challenges. In addition to my Scandinavian Reading Challenge, I am doing The Book Girls’ Book Voyage: Read Around the World challenge. Instead of reading the areas in order, I am skipping around. In November, I read the next to last prompt for me, Asia – South, and in December I’m wrapping up the challenge with a selection for South America, The Air You Breathe by Frances de Pontes Peebles. When I can, I squeeze in an unread Book of the Month selection. They have a tendency to accumulate! Continue reading →

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  1. What I’ve Been Reading Lately (December 2021) & #ScandiReadingChallenge Update 
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  3. What I’ve Been Reading Lately (November & December 2019)

What I’ve Been Reading Lately (October 2022) & #ScandiReadingChallenge Update

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I love it when my reading selections bring me all over the place, and that was certainly the case this past month. I’ve been in San Francisco in the 1950s and on a cross country road trip in the 1930s. I was in Norway in the 1990s and 2010s and in South Korea at about the same time. Continue reading →

Related posts:

  1. Reading Lately (February 2020) & #ScandiReadingChallenge Update
  2. What I’ve Been Reading Lately (December 2021) & #ScandiReadingChallenge Update 
  3. What I’ve Been Reading Lately (August 2022) & #WITmonth Wrap-Up

What I’ve Been Reading Lately (September 2022)

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September introduced a new reading challenge to me, #sakprosaseptember, a nonfiction reading challenge (“sakprosa” means nonfiction in Norwegian) hosted by Norwegian bookstagrammer readygoread. I finally read a book she has long recommended, Invisible Women, and checked off two which have been on my TBR list for a while, Fearless Females and We Should All Be Feminists. I don’t read a lot of nonfiction, but on the rare occasions that I do, I usually end up really enjoying it, and this was no exception. Continue reading →

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  1. What I’ve Been Reading Lately (December 2021) & #ScandiReadingChallenge Update 
  2. What I’ve Been Reading Lately (August 2022) & #WITmonth Wrap-Up
  3. What I’ve Been Reading Lately (January 2022) & #ScandiReadingChallenge Update