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CULTURE

Welcome to The Local Sweden’s Book Club

The Local Sweden's Book Club is a place to learn about Swedish culture through reading, and we want you to be involved.

Published: 14 March 2019 14:04 CET
Updated: 30 September 2020 08:18 CEST
Welcome to The Local Sweden's Book Club
In a country with libraries this beautiful, how could you not be inspired to read more? File photo: Jann Lipka/imagebank.sweden.se

If you love books, want to learn more about Sweden, or to connect with like-minded people, The Local Sweden's Book Club is for you. You don’t need to speak Swedish or even be located in Sweden to take part, and it's free to join.

So how does it work?

Each month we read a different book with a connection to Sweden (chosen by Book Club members) and chat about it in person and in our dedicated Facebook group, which you can join here.

We're doing this because understanding a country doesn't just mean following the news, but also discovering its culture and reading its literature. For 15 years we've been reporting the news in Sweden, and our community of readers includes long-term expats, new arrivals, Swedes living abroad, and people who have never visited the country. This is our chance to read and talk about Sweden together. 

We cover a range of genres, going beyond Nordic noir to read fiction and non-fiction by a diverse range of writers, and we began with the wartime diaries kept by one of Sweden's most famous authors, Pippi Longstocking creator Astrid Lindgren.

This variety allows us to explore different parts of the country, and even different periods in its history, from between the pages of its best books.

Reading might be something we usually do in solitude, but something special happens when people come together to read, as you'll know if you've ever read a child's favourite story out loud to them, or read a book on a recommendation from a friend and found it helped you understand them in a new way.

In June we'll be reading Factfulness by Hans Rosling.

Our previous books are:

2019
April: A World Gone Mad: The Diaries of Astrid Lindgren 1939-45
May: Quicksand by Malin Persson Giolito
June: The Little Old Lady Who Broke all the Rules by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg
July: Everything I Don't Remember by Jonas Hassen Khemiri
August: Never Stop Walking By Christina Rickardsson
September: Wolf Winter by Cecilia Ekbäck 
October: A Sister in my House by Linda Olsson 
November: Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell
December: Fishing in Utopia – Sweden and the Future That Disappeared by Andrew Brown

2020
January: The Serious Game by Hjalmar Söderberg
February: Beartown by Fredrik Backman
March: The Circle by Sara B Elfgren & Mats Strandberg
April: The Red Address Book by Sofia Lundberg
May: The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

Click the links above to read what those books were about, and what Book Club members thought of them.

Throughout 2019, we held five events in Stockholm, and kicked off with a talk about Astrid Lindgren and discussion of her wartime diaries on World Book Day, April 23rd. 

We also send out two to three newsletters a month with reflection on the month's book, and you can sign up for that by entering your email address below. 

And each month we try to interview the author and translator of the book we read where possible, putting Book Club members' questions to them. You can find all the interviews we've done so far below:

Above all, this is a community, and we're keen to hear from readers about your preferred genres or any book or event suggestions. Let us know what you'd like to get out of the Book Club! We do our best to select books that are widely available in translation and as e-books and audiobooks so that as many people as possible can take part, and will announce each title in advance so that we all have time to track down the book. 

If you'd like a say in how the Book Club is run and what we read, fill out the short survey below. You can also get in touch with us directly through email or, if you're a Member of The Local, by logging in to comment. The Local's Book Club is run by Catherine Edwards, and in 2019 has been supported by the European Journalism Centre's Engaged Journalism Accelerator.

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READER INSIGHTS

‘Benny is always very kind’: Foreigners’ top encounters with Swedish celebrities

We asked The Local's readers to tell us of a time they met a Swedish celebrity. Here are their best stories.

Published: 16 April 2024 11:10 CEST
Updated: 16 April 2024 14:27 CEST
'Benny is always very kind': Foreigners' top encounters with Swedish celebrities

Some readers shared stories of encounters with Swedes who are also global stars, such as Abba or the King and Queen of Sweden, others spoke of meeting national celebrities who had helped them get to know their new home country.

Anne Foo from Malaysia is a fan of the Sällskapsresan movies by Lasse Åberg, who plays the kind but hapless Stig Helmer.

“It was one of the first Swedish films I watched when I first moved to Sweden that I could understand without needing to be fluent. It helped me understand the Swedish psyche and their humour and Swedish people in general,” she said.

Multi-talented artist Åberg is also known for his sketches of Mickey Mouse, as well as Trazan & Banarne, one of Sweden’s most famous children’s shows, and his band Electric Banana Band. Anne met him when she visited his museum, Åbergs Museum, outside of Stockholm.

“We were not expecting to see him there but we kind of heard he pops by the museum often to help out. We bought tickets for the guided tour and lucky us the guide fell sick (sorry guide!) and Lasse, who happened to pop by just then, took over and gave us a personal guided tour of his museum. He is just as he was as Stig Helmer. Has a down-to-earth humour, very intelligent and humble.”

Another reader, Doug, met Swedish singer Lisa Nilsson when she was performing the lead role in the musical Next to Normal at Stockholm’s Stadsteater, a performance she got rave reviews for.

“I have loved Lisa Nilsson for years, ever since Himlen runt hörnet was required listening in my Swedish class,” he wrote on The Local’s Facebook page.

“After the performance I waited by the stage door to see if I could meet her. Many people came out, but not her – until finally she exited, alone. I approached her and she was not just gracious – she seemed genuinely excited to meet an American fan. We stood (in the rain, no less) and spoke for a while. I came away feeling that my adoration was well-placed: talented, beautiful, and so down to earth. A wonderful entertainer and an extraordinary human being.”

Some readers also shared pictures of themselves running into a Swedish celebrity.

Benjamin Dyke met football coach Sven-Göran Eriksson in Torsby, where Eriksson grew up, at the opening ceremony of the Svennis Cup, a youth football competition held every year in his honour.

Eriksson, more known by his nickname Svennis in Sweden, during his long career coached teams such as Lazio in Italy and brought England, as coach, to the quarter-finals of the 2002 and 2006 World Cups. Earlier this year he disclosed he had been diagnosed with fatal pancreatic cancer.

Dyke’s encounter with Eriksson happened a few years ago, and he walked up to the Swede to thank him for his time as England manager and the two chatted for a while about that.

“He asked where I came from in England and I answered that all my family come from Liverpool. His eyes lit up (I now know he supported Liverpool all his life, as did his dad) but when I explained that I was an Everton fan (the other Liverpool team…) he quickly shut down the conversation and walked away,” said Dyke.

Sven-Göran Eriksson, left, and Benjamin Dyke in 2018. Photo: Private

Readers also shared their stories on The Local’s Facebook page. Lindelwa posted a picture of her chance meeting with Swedish Melodifestivalen winner John Lundvik at Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport, although she revealed they did not share a flight.

Lundvik represented Sweden in the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest with the song Too Late for Love (and co-wrote the UK’s entry, Bigger than Us, the same year), with which he came in fifth.

Lindelwa and John Lundvik. Photo: Private

Gerard met Abba legend Benny Andersson outside his studio in Stockholm.

“I had never seen Benny’s studio so I went to take a look with the ferry from Djurgården to Skeppsholmen. I was told that Benny was in so I waited for a little while and he came out to meet a few fans,” he said, revealing that it was in fact not the first time he ran into Andersson, a composer also known for co-writing hit musicals such as Chess and Kristina from Duvemåla.

“He’s always very kind and patient. I had met him before, last time in 2010 in London for the concert of Kristina at the Royal Albert Hall. Next stop will be May 27th, the second anniversary of Abba Voyage in London where Benny and Björn will do a Q&A before the show.”

Gerard and Benny Andersson back in 2010. Photo: Private

Several other readers also said they had met members of Abba.

“I was a child visiting my relatives in Sweden the year Voulez-Vous was released. My aunt took me to NK [Stockholm mall] to buy the LP. On our way back to her apartment, she spotted Frida on Hamngatan. My aunt was amazing at celeb-spotting, and she was usually very discreet, but in this case she insisted I go up and say hello! Frida was happy to autograph the album for a young fan; it’s still one of my prized possessions today,” said Sue Trowbridge.

Of course, it’s not always easy to recognise celebrities. You might spot a familiar face but not be able to place it, as happened to Linda on two separate occasions when she ran into a Swedish acting star and a member of the Nobel Prize-awarding Swedish Academy.

“I accidentally stared at Pernilla August in a local food shop. She looked familiar but I couldn’t recognise her. She stared back and I suddenly came to my senses and looked another way. Embarrassed. I’ve also stared at Horace Engdahl,” she said.

In The Local’s original survey call-out, we also included a story from Australian reader Jake Farrugia, who was on his lunch break in NK when he spotted a familiar face, Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria. He walked up to her to ask for a selfie.

“She was very nice and we shared some small talk which truly made me feel like we were on the same level and that she had a strong sense of humanity, as I stood there, butchering her native language with my ‘work in progress’ level of Swedish. I can see why the Swedish people have a deep love and respect for her,” Farrugia said.

“It’s a very un-Swedish thing to do, that’s why I think it’s so fun! All of my encounters with celebrities in Sweden have been very positive so far. It’s all in the approach, you have to be respectful and be OK with others not wanting to give you their time of day, since we all have days where we are feeling less social and those can easily be interpreted as a part of our character, but they rarely are a fair representation.

“If I were to be a celebrity, Sweden would be the place to best blend in. It seems like celebrities can live a somewhat normal life as the construct of ‘celebrity’ isn’t viewed as a thing people go hysteric for as is the case in many other countries.”

The Local’s reader Jake Farrugia snapped this selfie with Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria. Photo: Private
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