Norway

Do Every Stupid Thing that Makes You Feel Alive

Kristin Lavransdatter Trilogy: The Wreath; The Wife; The Cross by Sigrid Undset

November 25, 2018 by Ellesfena 4 Comments

The Kristin Lavransdatter books tell the story of the life of Kristin Lavransdatter, a Norwegian woman living in the 14th century. I read historical fiction only very rarely, and a series about a Norwegian housewife in the Middle Ages wouldn’t normally be something that would be very high on my TBR list. I chose these because at some point in the last year, I was reading an article which had a short quote from one of the books. I can’t remember the quote or the context, but I was so taken with the power of that short quote that I […]

11/25/2018 Ellesfena's CBR10 Review No:48 |

Maybe you’re trying to distract yourself.

The Marvelous Misadventures of Ingrid Winter (Ingrid Winter Misadventure #1) by J.S. Drangsholt

August 12, 2017 by borisanne Leave a Comment

You know when you have a long stretch of five star reviews and you start to wonder, are my standards super low? Does everything delight me? Am I some kind of a hack reader that just loves everything that passes in front of my eyes? Well, if you have these concerns, may I highly recommend The Marvelous Misadventures of Ingrid Winter to you. It will alleviate all of those suspicions, because it’s seriously the worst, and no one could possibly like it. How on earth there are any reviews on Goodreads over 2 stars for this piece of junk, I […]

8/12/2017 borisanne's CBR9 Review No:33 |

Norway can keep its lutefisk, but I’ll happily take any mystery novels it wants to hand over

Eva's Eye by Karin Fossum

January 7, 2017 by yesknopemaybe 2 Comments

This was my first foray into Norwegian fiction and didn’t know what to expect. This mystery was a complete sucker punch and I loved it. Apparently Karin Fossum is called the Norwegian queen of crime. I didn’t know that until after I finished Eva’s Eye, but I can definitely see why she has the nickname. Her plot kept me guessing right up until the end and then left me shocked and disconcerted. Eva and her daughter, Emma, spot a dead body floating in the river one morning as they’re walking together. Eva pretends to call the police in front of […]

1/7/2017 yesknopemaybe's CBR9 Review No:4 |

It’s like Game of Thrones but without all the violence, and scheming, and a lot more Jesus

Kristin Lavransdatter I: The Wreath by Sigrid Undset

January 2, 2017 by vel veeter 2 Comments

I kid in the headline, but this really does involve a large introspective journey into the natures of Sin and Faith. Sigrid Undset won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1928, in large part because of this trilogy of novels. These novels trace the personal history of Kristin Lavransdatter, a medieval Norwegian noblewoman from her birth through….well, I will have to see when I read the third novel. This first section primarily deals with her childhood, her adolescence, and her various courtships, love affairs, and troubling experiences with sexuality and her own identity (religious and sexual). It’s not really […]

1/2/2017 vel veeter's CBR9 Review No:2 |

Someone pay me to travel around Europe eating tasty food and kissing cute boys.

An Age of License by Lucy Knisley

February 3, 2016 by narfna Leave a Comment

Lucy Knisley is a delightful, talented human being, and I will read every book she chooses to publish. This particular book is a record of her travels to Europe over the summer of 2011. She was invited to speak at a Norwegian comics convention in Bergen, and used the opportunity to travel to Sweden to visit a man she’d met several weeks before when he was vacationing in New York City. She also travels to France (Paris, and another city of which I’ve since forgotten the name), visiting a friend who works in a Parisian winery, and where she meets […]

2/3/2016 narfna's CBR8 Review No:21 |

An unsuccessful glimpse inside the mind of a killer

Blood on Snow by Jo Nesbo

July 2, 2015 by Valyruh Leave a Comment

Nesbo steps away from his standard Norwegian detective fare with this slim new novel that starts and ends with the blood of a murdered man soaking into the snow. Blood on Snow is written from the viewpoint of a mob “fixer,” a contract killer named Olav who is kept on the payroll of Oslo’s biggest crime boss to take care of problems that his boss doesn’t want to think about. These problems range from snitches to competitors to an unfaithful wife. And until Olav catches a glimpse of the wife, he has no problem shooting people at point-blank range or […]

7/2/2015 Valyruh's CBR7 Review No:48 |

A high-octane thriller that stretches credibility — if you care

The Son by Jo Nesbo

May 18, 2015 by Valyruh Leave a Comment

This bloody action-packed Norwegian police procedural/thriller is as exciting and fast-paced in its telling as it is absurd in its plot. The “hero” is young Sonny Lofthus, a lifer and a drug addict who has spent the past 15 years behind bars copping to crimes committed by the crime syndicate that runs all manner of nasty operations in Oslo. In return, he is kept happily supplied with top quality heroin, to which the assistant warden is well paid to keep a blind eye. The broken prison chaplain, a blackmail victim of the syndicate, brings Sonny his drugs and a syndicate […]

5/18/2015 Valyruh's CBR7 Review No:33 |

Miserable Weather + Terrible Taxes = Happy People?

The Almost Nearly Perfect People by Michael Booth

January 22, 2015 by Berry 27 Comments

If I’d just seen Michael Booth’s The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia, I never would have read it. First of all, the cover of the Finnish edition is hokey as hell. Bad publisher. Go to your room and think of what you’ve done. Second of all, what would you think, if you saw a book that’s just 300 odd pages about Scandinavia and Scandinavian people? Boring, right? Booth mentions very early on that many people to whom he talked about his book project over the years had a similar reaction: “A book about Nordic countries? But we’re so […]

1/22/2015 Berry's CBR7 Review No:3 |

emmalita on “At this point, I think if you’re being silent, you’re making a choice and taking a side.”Added to my list!
emmalita on Will this be a review of this book or a review of my Episcopalian conversion? Stay tuned.What a powerful and intimate review. I was raised without church or religious community. The church going I did with extended family as a child...
Alexis Dubief on Loving the IAD Series RereadAm fully loving this podcast and it's been a welcome breather from Pod Saves America (which I also love but is crushing my soul a...
A. Monroe on Post-apocalypse with a political agendaOh sad little liberals whining about a book that doesn't tow the liberal narrative. Don't we have enough liberal authors for you snowflakes? That nut...
tillie on “…a duty, out of sheer cussedness, not to disappear completely, simply to ease the conscience of the rest.”Interesting! I read an article about her some time ago that raised some questions about her: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/26/a-decade-lived-in-the-dark I think it's really interesting that the book...