So, when I went to Edinburgh I visited four bookshops, missed the book festival but still came home with nine new books. And I was talking to my friend about how I read Swedish all last month, and this month would be all English. She then said, “Your bookcase must be very fascinating.” So, I thought that I should blog it. Sadly it’s not nearly as interesting as Jenn thinks, and it’s only about a quarter of all the books I own, but still!

(The rest is stashed in my parents’ garage, waiting for me to live somewhere permanently.)

When I looked at this picture I was surprised to see how little books and how much craft related items there is in my “big” bookcase. I happen to own one twice this size, but haven’t lived anywhere big enough for it to fit since… 2000. Yes. Sad, sad life.

On top of the shelf is my new prize yarn; utterly gorgeous Manos Silk, bought also in Edinburgh. It is beautiful and I keep petting it and asking it what it wants to be knitted into. No answer as of yet, but I’m sure it will come to me.

The table cloth thing is handwoven and I love it to bits. The warp was wound with five burgundy sections and four white ones, and then woven with pink in what we here in Sweden call “kypert”, creating a zig-zag pattern.

The art in the background I have borrowed from my sister. I am a writer and knitter (and um seamstress and wannabe spinner, etc, but hush), while she is awesome at painting and drawing. This piece I have borrowed until she has a home here in Sweden to hang it, and as sad as I am to lose it soon, I am very happy to have her home!

Looking closer I’m noticing that I sort my bookcase in the same manner as I sort my book list. On the top shelf we have fantasy to the left and young adult to the right.

Yes, I only own five of the seven Harry Potter books. Yes, one of them is hardcover and four is paperback. Yes, two are “adult” cover and three are kids cover edition. This bothers me more than you can imagine.

(Almost as muh as the fact that Boofheads have snuck between my two Maureen McCarthy books. Almost.)

The two middle shelves holds what I like to refer to as Craft Section of Doom. From left – the two books I own that isn’t fantasy, YA, textbooks or in Swedish, followed by my very few crafty books. Three are about knitting, and one each about spinning and quilting. Also, the S’n'B calendar from 2008.

On the right, the pile of pads and wetbags waiting to be bought, a knitted beret that needs to be tweaked before I publish the pattern, and metre upon metre of elastics for when I get around to sewing any of those fourteen skirts I’ve planned.

And below that, we have on the left all the fabrics I’ve cut and that are mid-sewing project. Yes. There are a lot of them. I know. Also, a yarn winding thing. It’s a million years old and belonged to my mother’s aunt Kerstin once upon a time.

And on the lower right we have my spinning section – some beautiful batts I bought from Picnic Knits, my snaps and zips and of course, my drop spindle with sheep stenciled onto it.

This is, um, my to-read-shelf. An unholy mess of books in English and Swedish, and despite not reading translated works anymore I have acquired quite a few of these books…

(No, I don’t know what the deal with the naked girl on the three books to the left is either.)

My other bookshelf is built into my desk, which makes me love it even more. I love combination-furniture.

Top shelf is all my books in Swedish (that I have read, that is), of which a staggering amount are crime mysteries. Also, the only Peter Pohl book that I still own, Malins kung Gurra. I used to own quite a few of his books, but had to leave most behind when I moved continents.

Bottom shelf is the single trace of my university studies. A small pile, because I also had to leave most of these behind. A single notebook, and my only DVD (yes, I’m serious) Amélie. That is all.

Unless you count my cookbooks. Which I never, ever use.

What’s in your bookshelf? PICTURES! I demand pictures.

It’s female appreciation month, so I thought I’d list thirty books that have meant a lot to me or that I just really think that you should read. 25 I have read, and 5 are on my ‘must read’ list.

And all of them are definitely not female, but a good portion of them are. Some of these I haven’t read for a decade or more, but loved so much that I couldn’t not bring them to school and read on every single available moment, some time during my childhood or teens. Those blurbs may be a bit vague. And yes, I will re-read them. Some time.

You may notice that most books in Swedish are from ‘before’ and most in English are for ‘now’. Boktipset is a neat Swedish site where you can catalogue books you read and it gives you suggestions of other books to read. The Wikpedia links will tell you if these have been translated to your preferred language.

This is not a best of all times, that sort of list just gives me serious stage fright. Just… thirty really good books, in alphabetic order, divided on ‘then’, ‘now’ and ‘later’. Read them! Or not.

Number of books written by women: 25
Number of books written by men: 5

Number of books written in English: 15
Number of books written in Swedish: 13
Number of books written in a third languages: 2

Number of books by Swedish authors: 13
Number of books by American authors: 7
Number of books by Australian authors: 5
Number of books by British authors: 2
Number of books by authors of other ethnicities: 3

And as this list kind of got out of hand (over 5,000 words and counting), I’m putting just the list on top, click on each one that interests you to get to the blurb about it:

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15 BOOKS I LOVED THEN:

01: Boije af Gennäs, Louise: Stjärnor utan svindel (1996)
02: Boye, Karin: Kallocain (1940)
03: Ehn, Anna: Vårfrost (1995)
04: Gardell, Jonas: Ett ufo gör entré (2001)
05: Gripe, Maria: … och de vita skuggorna i skogen (1984)
06: Guillou, Jan: Ondskan (1981)
07: Holt, Anne: Död joker (1999)
08: Lassen, Caecilie: Lulu (1988)
09: Lindgren, Astrid: Bröderna Lejonhjärta (1973)
10: Lindroth, Lasse: Där inga änglar bor (1995)
11: Nilsson, Johanna: Hon går genom tavlan, ut ur bilden (1996)
12: Oates, Joyce-Carol: Foxfire (1993)
13: Plath, Sylvia: The bell jar (1963)
14: Pohl, Peter: Regnbågen har bara åtta färger (1986)
15: Skugge, Linda: Saker under huden (1998)

…

10 BOOKS I LOVE NOW:

16: Crowley, Cath: Gracie Faltrain gets it right (finally!) (2004)
17: Hadley-Kamptz, Isobel: Jag går bara ut en stund (2007)
18: Jansson, Anna: Svart fjäril (2005)
19: Johnson, Maureen: The Bermudez triangle (2007)
20: Lanagan, Margo: Tender morsels (2008)
21: McCarthy, Maureen: Rose by any other name (2006)
22: Pierce, Tamora: Page (2000)
23: Rayner Roberts, Tansy: Power and Majesty (2010)
24: Rees-Brennan, Sarah: The demon’s lexicon (2007)
25: Rowling, J.K.: Harry Potter and the goblet of fire (2000)

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5 BOOKS I WANT TO ADD, BUT HAVEN’T ACTUALLY READ YET:

26: Crusie, Jennifer: Bet Me
27: Gaiman, Neil: The Graveyard Book
28: Larbalestier, Justine: Liar
29: Myracle, Lauren: Peace, Love and Baby Ducks
30: Vaught, Susan: Big Fat Manifesto

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13 BOOKS I LOVED THEN:

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01: Boije af Gennäs, Louise: Stjärnor utan svindel (1996)

(Boktipset | Swedish Wikipedia | English Wikipedia)

This book was the first one I ever read with a lesbian storyline. It’s about a woman named Sophie, who is wealthy, career driven and successful. And, um, married. When she falls in love with a woman she has to juggle these two worlds, one filled with feminist and political discussions, people of every sexual orientation and lots of vegetarian stews, and the other, which is fancy, with expensive foods, conversations about nothing and extremely hetero centered.

And um, possibly the love interest is named Kaja. Purely coincidental, I swear.
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02: Boye, Karin: Kallocain (1940)

(Boktipset | Swedish Wikipedia | English Wikipedia)

Has been re-published in at least ten languages and a number of editions since it was first released. It’s a 1984-esque type book, about a military state where you feed people truth serum, report everything to the authorities and have to turn your children over to the state to become good soldiers at the age of seven. It’s quite SF, actually.

This is not so much the love for this book, as it is for Karin Boye as a person. She was a Swedish poet, and growing up I always thought it was so cool that our names were so similar. In the 1930s she started to live openly as a lesbian, despite this being illegal back then (that law was ditched in 1979), and being unhappy with having to “live as a man”. She commited suicide by way of sleeping pills at age 41, and less than a month later the woman who she called her wife followed suit.

My favourite piece of hers is actually the rather short poem Jag vill möta / I want to meet (click to read!), but she’s many good ones.

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03: Ehn, Anna: Vårfrost (1995)

(Boktipset | Swedish Wikipedia)

Elin wrote an entry a few weeks ago about books dealing with eating disorders (in Swedish, sorry) and whether they help or harm. It was a really interesting read, and brought this book to mind. I read so many, but this is the one that really stuck in my mind.

It’s about Klara, who is twelve years old and a swimmer. Her coach tells her (I think, it’s nearly fifteen years since I read it) that she needs to lose a tiny bit to move faster in the water, and it takes her into a downward spiral without an end. I remember that the book has a very open ending. Either she finds peace of mind and the strength to move on or she… doesn’t.

Man, I used to hate books that ended that way.

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04: Gardell, Jonas: Ett ufo gör entré (2001)

(Boktipset | Swedish Wikipedia | English Wikipedia)

This author is something as strange as a stand-up-comedian that writes tragic books, although admittedly with a bit of funny thrown in for good measure. What’s even odder, he’s not the only one on this list. Jonas Gardell was, I think, the first openly gay celebrity we had, here in Sweden. His books deal with that stuff a lot, feeling out of place and others pouncing on this fear.

This book is the second in a series of three, and in it Juha (which is actually a Finnish name) has a friend who is badly bullied by the others. He doesn’t defend her, as far as I can remember. What I do remember is that I was fascinated by Jenny more than Juha, and wishing that the book focused on her instead. Apparently there is a ‘25 years later’ book out now, about her and what happened when Juha wasn’t around. Tying up lose ends. I must read it.

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05: Gripe, Maria: … och de vita skuggorna i skogen (1984)

(Boktipset | Swedish Wikipedia | English Wikipedia)

Maria Gripe is one of our big authors, and has been translated a bit, but I can’t find a link to this specific one in English. She wrote a lot of books with magical or mysterious shades to it. I love many, many of her books, but this is the one I remember the most. It’s number two in a series of two, and is about a girl named Berta. She and her half-sister Carolin, who she didn’t know existed before she came to work as a maid for Berta’s family, go off together to work for a wealthy family.

I don’t remember many details, but I do remember that the girl they work for – it’s two siblings, a boy and a girl – is mute, and does not use sign language. Instead she writes her half of each conversation in a notepad, and she has all of these catalogued somewhere.

I need to re-read some of Maria Gripe’s work, because it’s been far too long.

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06: Guillou, Jan: Ondskan (1981)

(Boktipset | Swedish Wikipedia | English Wikipedia)

Jan Guillou is one of those people that you’d rather not like. He’s always in the papers, saying something moronic, and isn’t scared of creating drama. He is probably most known for his endless series of crime fiction about a spy and a historical fiction trilogy about a knight templar, taking place in the 12th and 13th century. Many of his books have been translated to English, but I can’t find a link to this specific one.

This book is semi-biographical and is about a boy who after getting in serious trouble is sent off to boarding school. There is a lot of bullying and downright abusive behaviour going on, and Erik, the protagonist, and his best friend are always at the receiving end. I first found out about it when our school arranged for us to go see a play based on it. It was a one-person-play, and basically consisted of the actor holding an endless monologue. It was so fascinating that I wanted it to go on forever. Afterwards I found the book at the library and read it over and over.

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07: Holt, Anne: Död joker (1999)

(Boktipset | Swedish Wikipedia | English Wikipedia)

Anne Holt is a Norwegian lawyer, journalist, politican and author. She’s most known for her books about the detective Hanne Wilhelmsen. I am not entirely sure if this particular one has been translated to English, but some of her books definitely have.

Most books about Hanne have a gruesome murder or several in focus, but I read them because of the small glimpses of her personal life. She is a very closeted lesbian, who has lived with the same woman for years, but always refused to acknowledge their relationship. This is very powerfully illustrated by the fact that she has, during over a decade, avoided to put their last names on their mailbox, instead going with only their initials. In this book her partner, Cecilie becomes very sick, and Hanne is forced to re-examine her priorities. The murder plot is, as always, well executed, but it’s the storyline with Cecilie that I remember. It’s also the reason I picked this particular book from this series.

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08: Lassen, Caecilie: Lulu (1988)

(Boktipset | Personal webpage in Danish)

Lulu was one of those books I measured myself up to when I was younger. On the back it said that Caecilie was only fifteen when this book was published; at her webpage it says she was seventeen, but that her first book was published a year before this one.

Holding yourself up to such standards can kill your dreams faster than anything else.

This book takes place in Copenhagen in 1943, when Germany had invaded Denmark. 15-year-old Lulu stumbles into a movement that works against the war, and kind of accidentally gets a bigger and bigger part in it, while also struggling with the usual growing up thing. It’s a quite fascinating read, as I recall, and now I really want to re-read it and study the language, and how it was written.

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09: Lindgren, Astrid: Bröderna Lejonhjärta (1973)

(Boktipset | Swedish Wikipedia | English Wikipedia)

This title could (and has been!) translated to The brothers Lionheart.

Astrid Lindgren has written so many amazing books, many with supernatural / fairytale / fantasy elements. There is the book about Ronja the Robber’s daughter, that is set in medieval time, the one about Mio my son, who discovers he’s the son of a king in a fairytale kingdom, the one about the secret land underneath the rosebush, and oh so many others.

This one is one of my favourites. It’s about a young, sickly boy and his older brother Jonathan. Karl knows that he’s going to die from… TBC or something, I think, but what he doesn’t know is that his strong, handsome and thoughtful brother is going to die too. It happens when their house catches on fire, and the time afterwards is awful. When Karl finally dies as well (the poor mother!), he discovers that heaven isn’t, well, a heaven.

He ends up in a world where everything is shiny and nice, everybody is pleasant, he can swim and has a horse to ride. Everything is fine. Until he finds out that somebody is shooting down the doves carrying the post with arrows. This lunges him into a big adventure with a dictator, an underground rebel group, a nice grandfathery type man and, believe it or not, a dragon.

Ah, yes, Astrid knew her fairytales.

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10: Lindroth, Lasse: Där inga änglar bor (1995)

(Swedish Wikipedia | English Wikipedia)

I have no memory of this book whatsoever, but I do remember that I loved it so much that when I checked it out from the library I folded the corners of all the pages I wanted to copy down before returning it, promptly forgot to do this, and my best friend at the time checked it out next, unfolded all the corners and proceeded to tell me about this book she was reading that came with almost every page marked. Small town libraries and all that.

Lasse Lindroth was a Swedish stand-up-comedian, actor and author. Like Jonas Gardell he wrote tragic/comedic books, and this one is about an adopted boy that is rather badly treated by people around him because of his skin colour. Lasse was adopted from Iran, and I believe some of this was actually biographical. He used his appearance to mock racists and neo-nazis in his comedy acts, which they took rather a lot of offense to, as I remember it.

I say “was” because he was killed in a car accident at age 26, less than five years after his breakthrough, and only months after getting married.

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11: Nilsson, Johanna: Hon går genom tavlan, ut ur bilden (1996)

(Boktipset | Swedish Wikipedia)

Johanna Nilsson is a writer that I used to like a lot. She uses a very vivid language, and her books have titles such as (translated) Rebel with cold feet and The girl that invented life. This book is about bullying, lying and diminishing yourself until you almost disappear. It’s probably twenty years since I last read it. I’m due for a re-read.

Re-discovering books is one of my favourite pasttimes.

I found one of her books in the fantasy section of the library, so I’m going to get back into reading her stuff. She writers YA, and I’m not sure if that one is actually fantsy.

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12: Oates, Joyce-Carol: Foxfire (1993)

(Boktipset | Swedish Wikipedia | English Wikipedia)

This book is a quite fascinating read about a group of five teenage girls, Maddy, Lana, Goldie, Rita and Legs. They find themselves to be treated badly because they are girls, and are set out to avenge this, one way or another. My favourite part is the turning point; when they get back at a teacher who touches Rita inappropriately by writing graffitti on his car. They paint it only on the passenger’s side, which means he doesn’t see it before going home for the day, and displays the message of what he does to innocent girls to the whole town. After that he is ridiculed and retires from teaching.

After reading Foxfire I checked out nearly every Joyce Carol Oates book I could find at the library and did my best to read and appreciate them. Sadly the others are more surreal, hard to understand (at least they were at age fifteen) and lead me to writing a series of short stories about suicide and dead children, that my mother got ahold of read, and proceeded to have a Very Serious Talk about. In short, I learned not to leave my notebooks laying around and that some people think that everything they read is true.

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13: Plath, Sylvia: The bell jar (1963)

(Boktipset | Swedish Wikipedia | English Wikipedia)

I read this book when I was in a bad place myself. It’s always like that, isn’t it?

It’s about a girl who finds herself depressed, which gets progressively worse as the book goes along. Her first psychiatrist is not a good one and traumatises her further. When she decides not to go back her mother tells her that she knew she’d turn out all right in the end. Esther’s depression gets worse and worse, and ends with a number of suicide attempts and a stay in a mental hospital.

What I remember most from reading it was that I felt suffocated.

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14: Pohl, Peter: Regnbågen har bara åtta färger (1986)

(Boktipset | Swedish Wikipedia | English Wikipedia)

Peter Pohl is one of our most translated authors, and while many of his books (I especially recommend Johnny, my friend) have been translated to English this specific book does not exist in English, only Dutch and German. He doesn’t shy away from difficult subjects, and I have read books of his dealing with stuff like a family member dying, a friend dying, sexual assault, incest, bullying, problems in school, domestic violence, etc.

This book takes place in 1945, and is about a boy with a Swedish mother and a German father. He comes to Sweden after the war without knowing a single word of the language, and is forced to find his way in a climate where Germans are all but popular. Henrik, the protagonist, is actually named Heinrich, but as soon as he learns the language he takes this Swedish version of his name and refuses to speak German until he forgets how to do so in a desperate attempt to fit in. He is small and shy and careful and has quite a poetic language. The title can be translated to The rainbow only has eight colours and is a play on the fact that he insists that the ninth colour of the rainbow is “longing”.

He makes a few friends, but tragedy strikes. Repeatedly. This is the book that had my American ex going “do you Swedes have any books that don’t deal with death or horrible diseases or you know, being beaten to a pulp?”

I believe my answer was “… no.”

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15: Skugge, Linda: Saker under huden (1998)

(Boktipset | Swedish Wikipedia)

Linda Skugge is a journalist, author and blogger with a lot of opinions. She used to be rather radical and a feminist, but as she grew older she became more conservative and was never afraid to say so out loud. For example there is an article in which she stops identifying herself as a feminist, which, um, didn’t make people all that happy. In 2007 she had to quit blogging because people were jumping her too much. I believe she has since picked it up again, but I’m not sure as I don’t keep up with her anymore.

The best thing about her is that she always talks about being strong as a woman, of working, of being active and creative and personally make sure that you get what you want. If that’s not feminism I don’t know what is, but I do remember the drama following that article.

As all good emo kids I loved this book. It’s about growing up; about having friends that rip you to shreds in a heartbeat, about all the uncomfortable, painful, bad things that makes your teens the worst years of your life. It’s very honest and I remember loving it to bits. Back then.

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10 BOOKS I LOVE NOW

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16: Crowley, Cath: Gracie Faltrain gets it right (finally!) (2004)

(Personal website in English)

This is book three of three in this series. They are all about a confident, driven girl, who plays soccer like it’s going out of style. She’s on an all boys team, and it’s all very fast paced, very fun, and there are enough points of view to make your head spin.

The first book is only from one POV, and loses a lot of speed because of it. This is why I prefer the third. I haven’t read the second yet.

Gracie deals with a lot of the usual teenager stuff, like having a sworn enemy because she stole your swing in kindergarten, and trying to make your nerdy best friend cooler so that people will like her and coming off as a total meanie instead. And so on.

Sadly the soccer terms aren’t exactly spot on, but I love the characters (especially the minor ones) too much to care.

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17: Hadley-Kamptz, Isobel: Jag går bara ut en stund (2007)

(Boktipset | Swedish Wikipedia)

Isobel Hadley-Kamptz is a Swedish journalist, author and blogger and this is her first book. It is semi-biographical, and tells the story about trying to conceive for years, and when it’s finally successful, having to abort the baby at 19 weeks because of a very rare disease.

It tells the story of suddenly being unable to find comfort in the one person you love the most, because you’re both too broken, and sheds a lot of light on the late term abortion debate. More than anything it makes it very clear that nobody does this sort of thing cheerfully. It’s a vivid and painful book, and is really hard to stop thinking about.

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18: Jansson, Anna: Svart fjäril (2005)

(Boktipset | Swedish Wikipedia)

I have to admit to having rather a soft spot for crime fiction. When my last relationship ended I did nothing but reading crime mysteries, because it was the only books that didn’t have love in them. I have many favourite crime authors, Anne Holt, Camilla Läckberg, Åsa Larsson, Liza Marklund, Minette Walters and Janet Evanovich are a few others. I don’t much care for crime written by males, for some reason.

This one is about a detective that has fled Gotland, which is an island just off the coast of Sweden where the author herself lives, to try to forget his crush on a married woman that happens to be the usual protagonist of Anna Jansson’s books. It has ingredients as suddenly appearing siblings, stalkers, arson and speeds towards the conclusion at a pace that is breath taking. This is how crime fiction should be written.

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19: Johnson, Maureen – The Bermudez triangle (2007)

(Boktipset | English Wikipedia)

I have to admit that I first got hooked by Maureen’s very funny, very sarcastic blog entries. She frequently asks her readers to ask her random questions that she will answer in blogs and/or tweets. Like for example Romeo and Juliet being total dating fail and how to write a query letter. So far I’ve only read one of her books, but I’ve got several more on my “some time I must read” list.

This is a story about three friends, Mel, Nina and Avery. When Nina goes away for the summer Mel and Avery falls in love, and the book is not about that fluffy puppy love summer, but what happens when Nina comes back and something has changed. It’s about awkward love, Irish chain restaurants, friendship that changes and most of all, it’s about growing up. It’s a very innocent book, with the most risque line being “She’d done things with aforementioned girlfriend that went well beyond kissing, things that might still be illegal in some of the more backwards states.”

Yet it has been banned in several school libraries for lacking moral fiber, promoting homosexual content, unprotected sex, underage drinking, and reckless promiscuity, to name a few. Fun times!

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20: Lanagan, Margo – Tender morsels (2008)

(Boktipset | English Wikipedia)

I was sent this book by my Australian book fairy, because she thought that there were themes in it that coincided with one of my own projects at the time. Once I had gotten the first draft down I read it, and holy hell.

This is a book so vivid, painful and amazing that by the end of it all you feel like somebody has turned you inside out and then back again. What’s even more wonderful? You liked it. The entire time.

It’s based on the fairytale Snow-white and Rose-red, and tells the story of Liga, who is fourteen when something awful happens. Twice. Somehow she ends up in a safe haven, giving her a place and time to heal. She bears two daughters because of these two incidents, Branza and Urdda, and the book is centred around the three of them.

The lesson you learn from reading this powerful book is that there is always an “after”, and no matter how awful it is at the time, you will make it through. And it will get better. Only not in a “happily ever after” sort of way. No, this is more of a “I hate you, world, and I love you at the same time, and I hate that I love you and love that I hate you” sort of situation.

This is one of my favourite books of all times.

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21: McCarthy, Maureen – Rose by any other name

(Boktipset | Booked Out Speakers Agency)

Maureen McCarthy is an Australian writer that writes long, gritty YA novels. I’ve read a couple, and it was a tough choice between this one and Queen Kat, Carmel and St Jude. This one won in the end, because I love the protagonist so much.

Rose is angry. She’s angry at the world, she’s angry at everyone in it, and most of all she’s angry with herself. As the book starts she sets out on a roadtrip, but the fun is sort of diminished by her mother tagging along. Also, the reason that she’s doing it, is to get to her dying grandmother.

In flashbacks we’re told the story of how Rose became this cranky and pissed off, and it is not for any reasons I would’ve imagined reading the back blurb or the first few chapters. Maureen McCarthy is an amazing storyteller, and I’m hoping to read many more of her books.

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22: Pierce, Tamora – Page (2000)

(Boktipset | Swedish Wikipedia | English Wikipedia)

Tamora Pierce is a rather fierce lady, with a blog in which she does not shy away from stating her opinion. There is nothing diplomatic about the way she speaks about feminism and politics, and just yesterday I laughed myself silly at her using the phrase “what in the motherfucking baby-frying universe”.

She has written a lot of fantasy, most which are about the kingdom of Tortall. Page is the second book out of four in the Protector of the Small Quartet series. They are about Keladry from Mindelan who is the first girl to ever train openly as a knight. This is far from appreciated by some of the older pages, and she has to endure rather a lot.

There is another series of four books called The Song of the Lioness, which are about Alanna, who also trained as a knight, but for eight years managed to pretend to be a boy. I want to read those too, but I still have half a book to go!

Kel is both annoyingly stubborn, amazingly strong, sweet as can be but kick arse at the same time, and in short a heroine you grow to like. She has a goal and she intends to get there, one way or another. One of my favourite things about this author is that she portrays fleeting crushes; Kel is so much more than her feelings for one boy, and I love that. I do wish that this series had been about half as long as it is. By the fourth book I am no longer as fascinated as I was by the first and second, and it’s a shame, because it’s a lovely story.

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23: Rayner Roberts, Tansy: Power and Majesty (2010)

(English Wikipedia)

Okay, so I should probably admit that this is my Australian book fairy, and that this book has not yet been published. It’s due to come out in early/mid 2010 at HarperCollins Voyager, and is the first in a trilogy (possibly I’ve already read about half of number two as well).

This book is a lovely mix of fashion, flappers, naked people, sky battles, magic and, well animals. Many, many animals. In the very first chapter Velody sees two naked men fall from the sky. One of them proceeds to steal her animor from her, which is, to simplify it rather a lot, what makes her able to turn into an animal of her own. She never knew that she could, and so she doesn’t miss it. Well, she may miss something, but she doesn’t know exactly what it is.

Of course, when he some years later dies and all this stolen strength is released again… shit happens. Rather a lot of it, actually. I really can’t make this book justice by recapping it, and I’d like you all to read it to see for yourselves. Um. Once it comes out, obviously.

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24: Rees-Brennan, Sarah: The demon’s lexicon (2009)

(Boktipset | English Wikipedia)

Sarah Rees Brennan has a rather well known blog with thousands of readers. She has a very distinctive narrative voice, both in her book and in this blog, and I always read it. I am such a fangirl.

Anyway.

This bok is about Nick, who is like, the anti-hero. In interviews Sarah has said that she dislikes that the dark, dangerous hero always turns fluffy, so she set out to write a book about a bloke that doesn’t. And, yeah, Nick is one of those people that look rather good, but doesn’t bother to chat you up. He spends most of the book wondering why people talk so much, doesn’t get the whole hugging and getting along thing because he doesn’t need anyone and disposes of bodies while being annoyed that he’s late for dinner.

Nick’s brother Alan is his exact opposite, and dispairs that his brother doesn’t seem to bother with actual feelings. They live with their mother, who is a former magician. She is wearing charms around her neck that she stole from the most powerful magician of all times, before plunging into mental illness. This means that the three of them are always on the run, because the magicians always seem to catch up.

Sarah is an absolutely amazing and EVIL writer, and this book takes you for quite a ride. I enjoyed it a lot, and while it’s currently not available in Swedish, it’s YA and a fairly easy read.

…

25: Rowling, J.K. – Harry Potter and the goblet of fire (2000)

(Boktipset | Swedish Wikipedia | English Wikipedia)

Everyone knows what the Harry Potter books are about, right? Thought so. I have read and loved them all, some more than others. This one is my absolute favourite of the seven of them, and, well. I am not going to say much about it, because you already know.

Harry. Prophecy. Saving the world. You know the deal.

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5 BOOKS I WANT TO ADD, BUT HAVEN’T ACTUALLY READ YET:

Because I want an even 30, here are five books I am planning to read.

26: Crusie, Jennifer: Bet Me (2004)
About a curvy woman who loves carbs but never seems to eat, a man that has a bet about getting into her knickers and probably a few other things. I will have to get back to you on this one.

27: Gaiman, Neil: The Graveyard Book (2008)
About a toddler that escapes a murderer that kills his entire family, somehow ends up in a graveyard and is promptly adopted by the ghosts there in a very Jugle Book fashion. I’m told this is a good one.

28: Larbalestier, Justine: Liar (2009)
About Micah, a young girl that is unable to stick to the truth. She lies about everything, and when a murder is committed in her near vincinty, well, things get complicated. I’m really curious about that one.

29: Myracle, Lauren: Peace, Love and Baby Ducks (2009)
About fifteen-year-old Carly who has a problem – two, actually: her younger sister Anna’s new “real live Hooters-esque boobs.” I love me some YA and Lauren Myracle is one of those authors that certain conservative Americans consider so risque that reading her (very innocent) books will rot their kids’ brains away. That in itself is incentive to read her books.

30: Vaught, Susan: Big Fat Manifesto (2007)
About Jamie who wants to do everything, including fighting for her rights as a very fat girl. She writes a column in the paper about it, and it seems like this story has quite a few twists and turns.

I was sixteen years old when I wrote my first piece of fanfiction. I had read this really amazing YA book called Chartbreak (the link goes to a very extensive preview) by Gillian Cross, and I want to state for the record that my cover looks nothing like this one, and I find it a bit creepy, because the person on it looks to be like forty years old.

It’s about sixteen-year-old Janis Mary Finch. She’s tall and built and describes herself as having the face of a boxer and old ladies crossing the street rather than coming face to face with her. All she has is her hair, long and curly, and her voice, that nobody knows about. Until a band finds her. She tells the story of their breakthrough, a long and intricate story that ends up nothing like you expect it to; the lead singer parks her in a spare bedroom of his mother’s house rather than with the rest of the band, and she ends up spending far too much time having tea with the mum, who is a very nervous older woman who always tries to milk her for information about her son, and very little actually singing. The first thing the lead of the band, Christie Joyce, does is making sure she gets her hair – the only thing she likes about herself – chopped off.

Finch, as she’s called, has a very vivid, descriptive narrative voice, that I completely fell in love with. For example she describes one of the blokes in the band as the type that has acne simply to annoy the fuck out of people, and Cross paints a picture of a girl that – six feet tall – is quite uncomfortable with her size, her looks, everything. Christie Joyce takes away the last bit of confidence by ordering a barber to cut her hair, and on top of it he won’t let her sing until the time is right, and she’s pissed the hell off.

When I read the book back then I was amazed by the strength in it, and how confident she was, but reading a review of it now, I find that it says: “She meets the unknown rock band, Kelp, and finds herself being pushed by Christie, Kelp’s arrogant lead singer, into singing with them, and winds her up into a fever of rage, awe, and attraction. Janis feels powerless to refuse, and her life explodes.”

I really want to read it again and see if I remember it right, or if it’s more like the review says.

It’s a great book with a great ending, but at sixteen I was outraged that there wasn’t even a kiss in it. In fact, the book ends with a public power play – Finch takes the one thing Christie cares about and threatens to smash it to pieces on stage, where he can’t stop her – and the most you get in terms of love? Hand holding.

Which, obviously, in the eyes of a sixteen-year-old, was Not Okay. So, unable to get the book out of my head I sat in math class, writing the next chapter in tiny, tiny letters (so that the girl to my left couldn’t read it) on graph paper. I only got about three chapters done before I got stuck with the story, but I still remember the book and how much I loved it.

Years and years later I sort of slipped into fandom. Most big TV series/movies/books/etc has one; a lot of the time they consist largely of fics, net speak and random flailing about people’s relative attractiveness. For those that don’t know, so called fanfiction is taking somebody else’s characters and universe and write them like you want them to be, telling stories that weren’t in the books or telling the story from of a different point of view.

There are many good ways to do it, and even more bad. And yes, to find the quality fics you have to wade through pages of not so great stuff. Still, it encourages people that wouldn’t otherwise write to express themselves and tell stories. That is a very good thing in my book.

So yeah, a few years after that first fic, of sorts, I took another stab on it, because I fucking hated the epilogue of the last Harry Potter book. It was the first writing I did in a very long time, and I probably wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t used JKR’s universe as a stepping stone. I have since graduated to my own characters, but I am very aware of that I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t found my way back through fandom.

What makes me the happiest is finding the people who used to write fanfiction, but that has managed to turn it into something more. One of these people is Sarah Rees Brennan. I’m told her take on JKR’s characters is absolutely amazing, but I haven’t had a time to read them yet. With that said, it’s now only ten days until her novel The Demon’s Lexicon comes out.

That causes some of us to squee far more than what it should.

I seem to have lost the train of thought. But yes. Fanfic? Can lead to good things. Obviously. As long as you don’t go nuts with it, I am all for it. And really, I am glad that I did try it. Even if I these days prefer to write my own stuff; I get frustrated with the limiations, and more than that, that I start relying on other people’s comments on my work. Writing for myself is better in every which way, but somewhere, far, far away the sixteen-year-old without a computer at home (I know, it was the Middle Ages, I had a typewriter instead), scribbling the first kiss of Christie and Finch in her math notebook while her teacher attempted to, um, teach her something or other, I’m sure, is bouncing all over the place.

Because writing that wasn’t stealing, after all. It was homage. In a manner of speaking.

I feel like this post is all over the place. I am having trouble keeping a consistent train of thought these days. You’ll have to live with that. I finished my NaNo-novel at 69-something-k, and immediately started rewriting it. And my brain? Is plotting what’s going to happen next.

I suspect that there is no getting away from continuing until it shuts up. I may be here a while…

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On my list of onehundred things I have Kristina från Duvemåla (go here for a much longer, and more detailed summary). It’s a musical built on a four-book series by the Swedish author Vilhelm Moberg. When I was seventeen I sort of accidentally got to see it. My grandparents, aunt and mum were going to see it, and as I (um, four years earlier) had shown an interest in theatre the extra ticket went to me.

The books had been standing in my parents’ book shelf for years. They weren’t the sort of book you looked twice at; green with tiny gold lettering and long since misplaced dust jackets. When I was sick I always laid and looked at the books in their wicker book case, tracing the names and titles over and over. These books, however, I had never cared to look closer at, and I was so-so about going to see it. But yes, I went with them, and was immediately fascinated by the story.

It is about a couple who emigrates to America during the 1850s, when Sweden was a very poor country, and you had very little to give your children if you weren’t lucky enough to be born into a good position. The male lead, Karl-Oskar, always wanted to go, he saw a new country and lots of possibilites to offer his wife, Kristina, and their many children. She wasn’t keen on moving, but after losing one of their daughters she reluctantly agreed. Book #1 is about them making the decision and leaving, book #2 about them arriving and starting to build a new home, book #3 about their new life and book #4 about the later life and death of Karl-Oskar and Kristina.

I had not read the books when I saw the musical.

It starts hopefully, with Kristina on a swing, waiting for Karl-Oskar to come and see her. As the story progresses it gains some of the very Swedish melancholy and drama; children dies, Kristina misses home, suffer a miscarriage and is told that she can not become pregnant again and survive.

(My (American) ex once asked me if there were any Swedish books or movies that didn’t contain misery, because all the ones that I told him about had somebody dying in them. I, um, told him that I suspected there were some, but that we love our melancholy.)

Early in the musical she tries to turn him away because they can’t afford to feed any more children than what they already have. Later on, when the doctor has told them that she can’t afford another pregnancy she uses the same arguments (accompanied by the same melody) to convince him that God wants them to be together. And he falls for it, and she gets pregnant, and dies. Very dramatic. Very Swedish style story telling.

I was surprised when I, a few days ago, randomly, found a few YouTube clips from it. I didn’t remember that God and his existence played such a big role in it, despite the fact that one of the most well-known songs from it is about doubting his existance.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLrAkQKC2Vc&hl=sv&fs=1]

Here it is; I found a clip with a translation that is a bit iffy at some times, because translating music is fucking tricky, but it gives a general idea of it all. I can’t say that I believe in anything, I’m way too cynical for that sort of thing, but this song makes me almost able to understand how it is to do exactly that. It’s very powerful.

Anyway.

The books. Let’s get back to the books. The first one was published in 1949, and the last one roughly ten years later. My parents had them all on their book shelf for years, but I never wanted to read them. When we came home from seeing the musical I read all four of them in three days. They are a bit old-fashioned, but still has a lot of interesting storylines.

One of the ones that I had forgotten about is the one about Ulrika. She is a prostitute (says Wiki, I thought she was just unmarried!), and her and her daughter are fleeing Sweden for a country where they are not judged from the start. She is a quite fascinating character, strong, outspoken and making no excuses for who she is. Some of her lines are quite frank, and had people demanding that the author should be imprisoned for the contents of book #1. What had people upset was her biting back when somebody called her a whore, telling them that he’d called her something else entirely when he came to her, money in one hand and his cock in the other.

It’s a good line.

After I saw the musical I listened to the (three CDs long!) soundtrack for months. I think my siblings wanted to kill me at times for Never Stopping To Play It, but as we all know I don’t do things half-arsed. We saw it a second time, and maybe even a third, but it was only the first time that I got to see it with the original cast.

And, well, that’s about it, I guess.

Going into my grandparents’ summer house is like going back in time. The kitchen is minimal, with green doors to each cupboard, and there is no running water. We bring it inside in a bucket, and heat it on the stove to do the dishes. There is a fridge and a freezer, but no microwave or other things that you get used to living in the city.

The toaster looks like this. You slip two slices of bread into it, one on each side, watch it for a couple of minutes, open it, flip the bread over to toast the other side, and do not walk off to fetch the jam until you’re done. There is not off button and no automatic turn off button. You unplug it when you’re done, but holy hell, don’t tug on the cord. It’s not exactly childproof.

Another machine they have is this little thing you put potatoes in with water, and turn a lever a few times, making the insides spin, and the peel to scrub off. When it’s done you have to peel them properly, which my Mum always do sitting on the porch, where the sun always is, but most of the work is done.

There are three channels on the TV, no VCR or DVD player, and computers? Ha!

Coming back there is always strange. The garden is much smaller than I remember it, the small path down to the lake is narrow and the beach over on the other side is tiny. Some of my best times were spent right here, but these days I simply can’t feel comfortable here. I have lots of memories, but somehow going here just reminds me of what I used to have.

When my grandfather wasn’t 88 years old and so hard of hearing and seeing that he spends most of his time sulking. One of my first memories of him is him proving that he used to be a gymnast, by standing on his hands against the wall. I think I was five or six years old, and I remember that he wore white trousers that day. I remember this because they split, spectacularly, at the seams, right down his bum, when he did his demonstrations.

When me and my cousins and siblings could spend hours and hours playing cards during rainy days. Grandma had collected a cup of tioöringar (equivalent – pennies) when they became useless as change, and we used them to play poker, rummy, plump (my favourite!) and a million other card games.

When the summers were mostly sunshine; I remember the grass being yellow and crisp, after six or eight weeks without a single drop of rain. These days rainy summers are far more common, and I eye the sky warily, waving the ozone layer goodbye.

Oh, nostalgia, how I love you.

The weirdest thing about staying abroad for too long is that you stop belonging. You could put a positive spin on it, of course, and say that you get more homes, but it’s not really true. I lived in the US for four and a half years, and the entire time I was introduced to people as “this is Kaia, she is Swedish”, and had countless conversations about:

a) what I missed the most about Sweden,
b) what is different between the two countries,
c) where in Sweden I came from,
d) how the hell to pronounce said name,
e) various people’s cousin’s boyfriend’s sister, who “almost” came from Sweden.

Yes, it gets old. You get used to it. You learn that missing Swedish nature really isn’t valid, because come on, Florida has beaches!, that people are more flummoxed by lack of shops open past 9 pm and lack of vital things like honeymustard than anything else, that all American always ask each other where they’re from, even if they have no clue where it is, and, of course, that being “almost” Swedish can mean anything from having a great-grandparent who was Norwegian to being an exchange student from, like, Italy.

You find yourself saying things like “in Sweden we don’t have boil-in-bag rice” (which we apparently do these days), “in Sweden there’s not air cons wherever you go” (to which they just look at you like you just declaring having a complex love affair with a fridge magnet), and explaining just how complicated getting a driver’s licence is compared to their tiny test and booklet, thinner than the handouts you get in class.

In short, you are first and foremost a foreigner (although, half the time people assume that you’re actually hispanic), and you spend entirely too much time wanting to go home.

Then you go home, and people actually recycle their coke cans. The pizzas are too thin, and have more than one topping, and you don’t pay for each additional one. The papertowels are tiny. You take your shoes off inside the door. You don’t get offered a drink wherever you go, you’re offered coffee. And you, of course, have to bag your own groceries.

Ever since I moved back home I’ve struggled with finding my place. I don’t feel like I belong here, I lost touch with almost all my friends, and I still half expect to be greeted in English when I go into a shop. At the rare occasions that I come across a person who don’t speak Swedish I happily chat to them, forgetting everything about my shyness. In Swedish I stumble over every word. In English? I can talk about nothing for hours.

It’s really strange.

Today I watched Barack Obama being sworn in as a president, and I got shivers. Several times I caught myself thinking things like “I never thought we’d have a president who mentioned non-believers in his first speech”, “wow, we really have a black president,” “I’m not going to have to avoid the state of the union addresses because I’d rather stick a fork in m eyes rather than hearing Bush drone on anymore…”

It’s an odd feeling, thinking these things and then correct yourself. Because I’m not an American. I’ve never been. I may not even be allowed to enter the country, should I attempt it. Had I fallen in love with a biological male I might have had a greencard by now. As it is America is not my country, and it will never be. And yet… I have a new president, and he’s awesome.

When I was in second grade we started going to the library with school every other week. I was ecstatic (and terrified, because to get there you had to go through the common room for grades seven to nine to get there) until I found out that we were only allowed to check out three books. Supposedly because we wouldn’t be able to finish them in a fortnight otherwise.

Having read the entire series of The Little House on the Prairie over the summer I blinked repeatedly and put ten books back on their shelves.

I was a nerdy child. Not the good kind of nerdy, that you se on TV. I had braces, and ugly glasses and too big front teeth. I also had book goals. First it was to read every single book on the horse shelf. To read all the Little House books. To read all Peter Pohl books (I gave up on that one, some of them were just too weird). To find a Joyce Carol Oates book other than Foxfire that I actually liked (I didn’t). To enjoy Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Emily Dickinson, Karin Boye, and a few others (I,um, didn’t).

When we moved from one tiny place to another the biggest perk was that there was no upper limit on amount of books to be borrowed. I learned to read while walking. If the book was too good I ended up in a hedge somewhere. My aunt still talks about the time she found me in one with a pile of books two feet high next to me.

In the last year I read five books. Five. It’s not even half of what I’d normally read in a fortnight, and had it not been because of my sister and Tansy the sum would be exactly zero. Somehow I forgot how to read. Or how to find the time to do so.

I wrote instead. This year I want to, somehow, do a bit of both. Starting with the pile that Tansy sent me last week. And then – I have no idea.

I am back at my flat, which is such a fucking relief. I love my family, I really, really do, but after two weeks with them I am exhausted. It’s hard to explain how I can, on Thursday stumble drunk through the streets of Gothenburg, chatting to complete strangers, and two days later have to cancel on dinner with grandma because my being-around-people-meter is maxed out. It doesn’t matter that it’s just dinner with people I have met a hundred times. I simply don’t have the energy, and if I make myself I will snap, or not say a word or wince at every laugh or unexpected noise. And yeah. That’s a lot of fun. Being that person.

When I was younger I forced myself to do these things a lot. I have found my limits now, and I try hard to stay within them. My mother makes it very hard. She means well, but her questions, and worried eyes, and well-meaning little gestures – they make me want to scream. Or hide. Or all of the above.

I have been knitting a lot lately. I made an impulse buy at the yarn shop – this gorgeous wool/soy blend by Gjestal. It’s a bit like SWTC’s Karaoke, and refused to let itself be knit into anything but a Clapotis. Not full size, naturally, but still. It’s gorgeous to knit with, and the colours remind me of this popsicle from when I was little. Green and white and purple.

I don’t remember what it tasted like, but I remember how it looked.

New Year’s Eve I spent in Gothenburg, with my cousins and siblings. Three of them live there, and we all got together, making the biggest buffet of all times (note: if you are eleven people, do not agree to fix a dish each, you’ll be eating until you fall into a yummy fat induced coma, and can’t have a beer for three hours because you are so omg full. and then you have to eat the amazing cheese cake and it starts all over). I got to meet lots of people, and I am afraid that we seemed completely mental about half the time.

There was especially one part of the evening, when we were youtube-ing (and dancing) to the Swedish phenomenon GES, that we, for some reason, are far too obsessed by. It has something to do with the soccer summer of 1994.

And really, it’s one of those things that you can’t adequately explain to a non-Swede, but I will try.

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If you talk about the summer of 1994 with a Swede she will get a certain look on her face and sigh longingly. It’s one of those you never forget. It was one of the years when the weather was great – we went so long without rain that the grass in the yard of our summerhouse turned brown and crisp, and we went down to the small lake at least six times a day, swimming, jumping from the small pier (that may be a slight misrepresentation of the word), doing a Brolin, a Kennet, a Ravelli, and so on; that is, doing their goal gestures while jumping into the water.

1994 was the World Cup in soccer. It took place in the US, so there were many late nights, and Sweden played better than ever before. In the end they came in third – because they met Brazil in the semi final, and you don’t beat Brazil in soccer. You just don’t.

What I remember the most from that summer is winding the swings up on the swing set, and using it as a goal. We played soccer for hours on end, taking breaks only to go swimming, practicing the goal gestures as we jumped from the pier. At night we watched the games. When it was time for the game about third place my family (brother, sister, parents, no cousins) had gone on holiday, and were horrified to find out that the cottage we’d rented didn’t have a TV.

I remember laying in the big bed with Mum and my sister, listening to the game on the radio. Somehow it feels like it wouldn’t have been half as magical if we’d watched it on TV.

Sweden won with 4-0, I think. It’s such a long time ago. Fifteen years. Holy fuck, that’s crazy.

And what does that have to do with New Years? Or GES? Well, see, they did the World Cup song that year. And yes. On New Years Eve we totally YouTubed said song, and danced to it. Like maniacs. I really love being a maniac with them.

Yeah. It exhausted me, but I’m glad I did it. Now I just need a holiday. From the holidays.