Usually the 3rd Monday of the Month (See dates listed below)
- 7-8 pm
- at Viking Hall
Interested in books that depict historical and cultural aspects of Nordic life, including a few Nordic noir crime novels? If so, you are invited to attend our meetings. Read the book – then come and join in the discussion. Books are selected by our members.
Here are the books and dates for our upcoming meetings:
Jan 15, 2018 – The Half-Drowned King: A Novel by Linnea Hartsuyker – An exhilarating saga of the Vikings that conjures a brutal, superstitious, and thrilling ninth-century world and the birth of Scandinavia.
Feb 26, 2018 (not the 3rd Mon) – Nemesis by Jo Nesbø – Detective Harry Hole must use his maverick methods once again as he investigates a slew of brutal bank robberies and the suspicious suicide of a female artist in this clever and harrowing installment in the Harry Hole series from the the author of The Snowman, which has been made into a major motion picture.
Mar 19, 2018 – The Ship in the Hill by William Sullivan – This historical novel is based on the true story of a Viking ship excavated from a hill in Norway in 1904. Archeologists were surprised to find the elaborate burial ship contained the bones of a woman. Historians in 1904 had assumed women were not important Viking leaders and weren’t allowed on ships. Who was she? The novel alternates chapters between the archeologists unearthing the ship in 1904 and the Viking queen who sailed it a thousand years earlier.
Apr 16, 2018 – Nikolai’s Fortune by Solveig Torvik – This tale of Scandinavian women is a heartbreaking, multigenerational epic, chronicling family secrets and sufferings against the backdrop of Scandinavian history and culture. Blending memoir and historical fiction, grandmother, mother, and daughter each share their own story: Kaisa, a story of her mother’s love for Nikolai and her 500-mile trek at the age of twelve from impoverished Finland across the snowy mountains of Lapland; Berit, a story of child slavery and an obsession with seeking out her grandfather’s fortune for her mother; and Hannah, the voice of Torvik, a story of her childhood during the Nazi occupation of Norway and her family’s emigration to Idaho.
May 21, 2018 – All In by Simona Ahrnstedt – This contemporary novel takes place in the cutthroat world of Sweden’s financial elite and is full of Shakespearean drama, scheming families and hot sex, but it also has some important things to say about how the world is functioning. It is the first in a series of three books. Previously, the author published three historical novels set in 1685 in Sweden.
Books read in the past include:
- Wolf Winter by Cecilia Ekbäck
- A Treacherous Paradise by Henning Mankell
- The Lion’s Mouth by Anne Hold
- Blackwater by Kristin Ekman
- Red Moon over White Sea by Laila Hietamies
- Hypothermia by Arnaldur Indridason
- Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
- Kristin Lavransdatter, Book 2 – The Wife by Sigrid Undset
- Kristin Lavransdatter, Book 1 – The Wreath by Sigrid Undset
- Lucifer’s Tears by James Thompson
- Snow Angels by James Thompson
- The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson
- The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
- Miss Julie by August Strindberg
- The Shetland Bus by David Howarth
- Giants in the Earth: A Saga of the Prairie by O. E. Rolvaag
- Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
- The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen
- A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen
- The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder
- The Indian Bride by Karin Fossum
- Song of the Vikings by Nancy Marie Brown
- Independent People by Halldór Laxness
- Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell
- Pelle the Conqueror: Childhood by Martin Anderson Nexo
- My Mother Gets Married by Moa Martinson
- The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman by Nancy Marie Brown
- To Siberia by Per Petterson
- The Snowman by Jo Nesbø
- Hannah’s Daughters by Marianne Fredriksson
- Sunpath by Michael Maryk
- Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
- The Emigrants by Vilhelm Moberg
- Unto A Good Land by Vilhelm Moberg
- The Settlers by Vilhelm Moberg
- The Greenlanders by Jane Smiley
- The Half Brother by Lars Saabye Christensen
- Royal Physician’s Visit by Per Olov Enquist
- Seal Woman by Solveig Eggerz
- God’s Mercy by Kerstin Ekman
- The Fish Can Sing by Halldór Laxness
- The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles by Roy Jacobsen
