When I was in my preteens and early teens, THE most influential author and illustrator for me was Inger Edelfeldt, a Swedish author and illustrator. She had an enormous impact on me. She was young; only about 15 years older than me and looked incredibly cool. In fact the one and only fan letter I ever wrote, I wrote to her. And she answered! A very nice long letter too. And yesterday she commented one of my photos on Facebook. I know, super silly of me to get excited about, and no real mystery either. It was a photo of Myra and S, and a quick check confirmed she and S are friends. Still. It reminded me of how much I loved her art, and I thought it would be much nicer to talk about her instead.

If you are a Tolkien fan you may have encountered her art; in 1985 she illustrated the Tolkien calendar. She also made the covers not only for Tolkien but for a lot of other books as well. My first encounter with her was the cover of the books in the original Earthsea-trilogy, and it was those cover which made me want to read them.

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Born in 1957 she debuted in 1977, but I didn’t read her until I was eleven so I will talk about the three books which meant the most to me in the order I read them. This was in the early ’80s, and the word “queer” didn’t exist. I knew what homosexual meant, but that there were any other flavours of sexuality or lack thereof or transsexuality, simply didn’t exist in media. In the books, I read het was the norm, and so it was in the show I watched. If a gay character was ever introduced it was only for an episode, and never as an important character in his or her own right. Edelfeldt changed my world by introducing other ways to be than the norm.

( The books )

( Comics )

I’m going to continue with the picture book-part of my 100 books list. It feels safe and comforting and exactly what I need right now. This book was originally my Mum’s, and both she and I have loved it so much, the book is nowadays a couple of loose leafs. I had no idea it was translated from English until I wrote this post. Written by Marguerite Brown and illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen. It was part of the Golden Books series, and published in 1949.

The story is simple, two kittens, Hush and brush (Tuss and Puss for me) want to have the colour green, but has no idea how. They randomly mix colours, getting all sorts of them, but no green, until they accidently mix blue and yellow. It’s actually a very pedagogical book about colour mixing, and most importantly; the sweetest illustrations.

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I feel a need to revisit my childhood favourites in my 100 books right now. Perhaps not so strange, all things considered.

When I was about twenty-five I was browsing a bookstore, coming across a great big stack of picture books. As soon as i saw them, I was flooded with memories of reading just those books as a small child. I had loved them, but somehow they got lost, and they were forgotten. Reading them brought back all the joy I always felt as a child when I looked in those books. If I need an instant gush of happiness, I go and pick one of them up.



As you see this is really two books, but I always see them as a whole. What Do You Do, Dear and What Do You say, Dear were written by Sesyle Joslin and illustrated by Maurice Sendak in the early 60’s. In truth I love basically everything Sendak has ever illustrated, especially Where the Wild Things Are, but these two book on manners and proper conduct, will always be my favourite.

The concept is simple, someone is presented with a problem, and the authorial voice ask what do do, or say, and on the next page, we’ll get the answer. But the problem is always absurd, often fantastical, and the protagonists, a boy and a girl, are clearly dressed up, and even for a small child it’s obvious that even a potentially dangerous situation, are just make believe.

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My father is a very private man, not very much for big gestures of affections. But I’ve never doubted his love and care for me, and one of his ways to show it, is to gift you with books. All through my childhood he would randomly give me a book he thought I might like. Most of them became books I loved. When I was about thirteen, he gave me Collected Poems by Karin Boye.



Karin Boye was a Swedish author, born in 1900 and died 1941. She worked as a translator and she wrote several novels, only one which is still read, Kallocain (1940). It’s a dystopian SF novel about a future where people live in a totalitarian world state where Kallocain is a truth drug, used to suppress and root out any thought on rebellion. It was an inspired by a visit to germany and the uprising of the Nazists in the early 1930’s. She also met her lifelong partner there, Margot Hanel, who was Jewish. But Boye is also famous for her poems, publishing four collections during her life, and a fifth one came after her death. She killed herself in 1941 after visiting a friend, who Boye seems to have had an unsided crush on, who was dying in cancer. It’s likely the friend's illness may have contributed to her decision, but also WWII, which she was very pessimistic over. Margot killed herself a month later.

I think the most famous lines of her poems is these;

Yes, of course it hurts when buds are breaking.
Why else would the springtime falter?

For the teenage me, her poems were wonderful. The themes of growing, struggling and one-sided love suited my own feelings, and I used my paperback as a kind of diary. It’s filled with underlined lines, and notes explaining I felt exactly like that on a particular date. Poems are difficult to translate, but all Boye’s poems have rather good translations, and all are available here. And below is a few of my favourites.

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I love this book so much. ( Read more... )

Samlade Svenska kulter (“Collected Swedish Cults”) by Anders Fager. Fager writes books where he mixes Lovecraft’s mythology with Swedish myths and I think it works very well. Sadly he is only translated to French and Finnish so far, apart from an odd short story or two. Samlade Svenska kulter is a collection of short horror stories. They are a mixture between rather long novellas who work on their own, but they are bound together with brief stories called Fragments. And that is just what they are, short scenes that connect some stories or bring the spotlight on an aspect of one of the longer ones. And though the novellas are their own stories you realise as you read that they are connected to each and after reading the whole book you have been given a larger story.

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Not much actually as I’m in a sewing mood right now and sew more than I read.

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When I read The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova the first time it felt like a book written specifically for me. I love long, slow-moving books. I love historical mysteries. I love vampires. I love multiple time-lines. I love history. And though I can’t say that this particular book had an unusual impact on me, it is representative for a few interest that has followed me for a long time.

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verdande_mi asked: Favourite Swedish children's book?

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