Read and discuss Scandinavian literature in translation as part of our Nordic Book Club, now online! Each month we select a novel from some of the best Nordic literary voices. Discussions have typically taken place the last Tuesday of the month at Scandinavia House but will now be taking place bi-weekly as an online meeting. Register here to sign up for the meeting; registrants will receive a web link to where the meeting will take place.
Book club participants will all appear online at the start of the meeting when they log in so that they are able to take part in the conversation. For participants who would prefer not to be visible onscreen, see an easy tutorial online here on how to set a profile image that will appear onscreen instead.
On July 14, we’ll be discussing The Island by Ragnar Jónasson, which was shortlisted for the Crime Novel of the Year award in Iceland and one of its bestselling books in 2016. In the autumn of 1987, a young couple’s romantic holiday to a remote cabin in the Westerfjords is interrupted by the discovery of a brutal crime, with catastrophic consequences. Ten years later, a small group from their circle of friends reunite for a weekend at an old hunting lodge on the island of Elliðaey, where, completely cut off from the outside world, they hope to reconnect. But one of them isn’t going to make it out alive — and Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir is determined to find out why, and how it connects to the events from 1987. Twisty and compelling, this second novel in the Hulda Hermannsdóttir series is equally thrilling as a standalone novel for Nordic Noir fans.