The summer vacation is unfortunately already over, but despite the odds I did get my usual mountain summer filled with hiking and reading. It is always a bit hard to return home, although I have to admit that it is lovely to again have access to hot showers…
This year I have read more than usual, a total of 101 books since January. This is probably largely due to a stronger than usual inclination to go for easy reads, many of them unmemorable, but I have had some real reading highlights during the summer. I have been thrilled by Doctor Glas, Hjalmar Söderberg’s tale about the morality of murder, read creepy ghost stories by Dan Andersson in Det kallas vidskepelse and travelled through Sweden in Selma Lagelöf’s The wonderful adventures of Nils, the latter particularly relevant in a time when travel is again difficult. I have also read two excellent, but rather different, short story collections, The thing around your neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Jag ser allt du gör (I see all you do) by Annika Norlin. All of these are highly recommended. In addition my recent discovery of the high quality publisher Archipelago Books, helped me ensure that not everything I read came from European or North American authors.
While my weeks outside internet coverage have been wonderfully restful, they have also meant that I am hopelessly behind on everyone’s blogs. So if any of you have read anything you particularly want to recommend this summer, I would be happy to hear about it in the comments…
I read that in a book 
Welcome back! It’s ages since I read Dr. Glas – overdue a revisit!!
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Thank you! Hjalmar Söderberg was on my list of Swedish authors I know I ought to read but haven’t. I’m glad both to have removed him from that list and to have discovered such an interesting novel. Now I look forward to reading his “The serious game”.
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Oh to be out of internet range with a trunkful of books and access to the open air — I spend far too much time on social media, even if much of the time it’s about books one way and another. At least I leave devices switched off downstairs and do a good two or three hours reading in bed at night and in the morning.
Can’t recommend another particularly as I tend to enthuse about whatever I’m enjoying at the moment, most of which tends to not be recently published. But I definitely should read more beyond my usual Anglophone range, which usually means North American or British authors.
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It was great, and sorely needed. I am also spending way too much time in front of screens normally, so having somewhere where I am forced to switch off is great.
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Hello again! I read The Summer Book at last and am now eager to read more Tove – perfect summer reading.
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Oh, your vacation sounds absolutely lovely! And the views! 😀
Doctor Glas sounds very interesting, I’ll check it out.
I can recommend A Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge (review here: https://reenchantmentoftheworld.blog/2020/07/08/frances-hardinge-a-skinful-of-shadows-2017/) and Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (review here: https://reenchantmentoftheworld.blog/2020/06/30/silvia-moreno-garcia-mexican-gothic-2020/). Odd Thomas wasn’t bad either (review here: https://reenchantmentoftheworld.blog/2020/07/29/dean-koontz-odd-thomas-2003/) but it was a rather unusual read for me; I rarely read horrors.
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Thanks, I’ll check them out!
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😀
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