8. A book that feels like it was written just for you

Faunen (The Faun) by Anna-Karin Palm. This book found me when I was 21, and it really felt like the author had been thinking of me when she wrote it.

It’s really three stories in this book, each written in different styles. First, there is the story about Amelia, author of romance novels in 1880s London. One day she finds a faun in her writing room who announces he is very vexed with her. It turns out he is not pleased with the book she is writing about Medieval Eleanor, because she is not describing what really happened. This is the start of a series of events that turns Amelia’s life upside down.

There is the diary of a young Swedish woman in contemporary London. She becomes obsessed with a painting of a faun and woman at the National Gallery, and throughout the diary she returns to it several times, interpreting it differently. She’s haunted by something she did to her best friend, and she also writes about the man who she can’t keep from running to as soon as he wriggles a finger.

And there is the story the faun tells Amelia, about Eleanor and the unicorn. This is the shortest story, written in a very stylized language. It’s more like a fairy tale, and you don’t get as close to Eleanor as you do to Amelia and the diary writer.

There are several themes in this book; friendship, betrayal, and creativity. Both Amelia and the diary-writer allow a man to shape their narratives, and the faun also shapes Eleanor’s life in the story he narrates to Amelia. And as a direct result of the faun intruding on Amelia’s life the most important relationship in her life, that to her best friend, gets into jeopardy.

It’s also about responsibility. When amelia takes back the control of her life, her narrative, she not only empowers herself, she also mends it, and she also saves Eleanor. And when the diary-writer realizes that his betrayal isn’t a betrayal; that she has to allow her friend to take responsibility for her own life, she can also break free from the hold of her lover and shape her life in a way that úits her.

When I read this book I had just broken up a very toxic relationship with a man who was very jealous and controlling. And I was also struggling with a friendship. Faunen came to me just when I needed them most, and it was very helpful. It’s also written in a style that suited me, and it’s very visual, which I am as well. And the bits about Stockholm was so very familiar; the same Stockholm I love din, visiting the same places and bars I went to.

I also loved her next novel Målarens döttrar (The Painter’s Daughters) which also is a novel with more than one timeline. One contemporary where Swedish Maria travels with her brother to England in search of their father, an artist. And then there is English Laura 100 years earlier who lives with her artist father. As with Faunen it centres around women and female identity. Palm’s books are translated to German, Dutch, French, Norwegian, Danish, Spanish, Polish, and Icelandish, but unfortunately not English.



All the questions:

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3. A book where you really wanted to be reading the "shadow" version of the book (as in, there are traces of a different book in the work and you would have much preferred to read that one)

The concept: a family saga taking place between the late 16th century to late 20th century, in Scandinavia (mainly) with magic.

The family, the Ice People have an evil forefather, who, according to the family legend, sold not only his soul to the devil but also the soul of one descendant in every generation so they would be cursed to become witches and warlocks and perform evil deeds. The real story is more complicated than that, but in short, the arc of the whole saga is the descendants' fight to break this curse. In the first book, the current warlock is, for the first time, not evil, and he manages to change the curse somewhat so that his descendants are not automatically born bad.

During the course of the series which ended up being 47 books, the individual books have a broad thematic scope. There are the ones that are close to social realism like the life in a small mining community in the early 19th century, of the hardship of a little boy who is kidnapped and forced to work in a mine in the 17th century. Some are crime novels or thrillers, several women found murdered and buried; the rumors say it’s a werewolf, but the solution is not supernatural at all, or the frantic search of patient zero when smallpox takes hold of a Norwegian town in the early 20th century. Some of them read more like adventure novels like when the willful heroine dresses up like a man to find her love, and some books are pretty much fantasy. There are also pure horror stories, like the vampire-like ghost who used her long hair to strangle the men she seduces or the absolutely horrifying story about a ferryman with a half face who drowns the people he ferries.

Romance is big too, and on the whole, the heroines are beautiful, but there are some notable exceptions with heroine’s who are plain, or even ugly, and it’s still made clear that they deserve- and get- happiness and love. There is also a lot of interesting history- you learn a lot about Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, and historical events are often woven into the plots.

The stories and plots in this series are actually pretty amazing, and many of the characters are really interesting. But, and this is a big but, the author, Margit Sandemo, just couldn’t write. A story that could have been epic is marred a stilted language, awkward conversation, and stereotypical descriptions. For example; every single man described as having sensuous lips, are villains. Every. Single. One. The sex scenes are very embarrassing. Oh, and at the end of the series, there is a super-cringe author insert. The author, who was Swedish-Norwegian wrote in Swedish but mixed in a lot of Norwegian words, and obviously, the books were never edited, making the language even poorer. They were obviously written very quickly- as the series were ongoing six books were published every year.


I really loved these books when I was in my early teens, but very quickly grew annoyed with everything I mentioned above. It’s so imaginative and interesting on the plot level, and then it all falls flat because it’s so poorly written. I would have loved to read it by someone who would write, who could construct dialogue, and who could steer away from the character cliches. As it is I think it could be a really good tv series.


It’s been translated into a number of languages, including English. I can only assume the translations are better as they are, presumably, only written in one language. The whole series is called the Legend of the Ice People. Not surprisingly the first books are the best, with more numánced character descriptions, and the magic kept on a more subtle level. I still have a very soft spot for the three first books, Spellbound and Witch-Hunt where the protagonist is a young woman, Silje, who meet and fall in love with a man from the Ice People. She is sweet, naive, and has a passion for painting, and there is also a parallel plotline about a young noblewoman who has a child born out of wedlock. The third book, Daughter of Darkness is about a young witch who the author actually dares to make completely amoral, which makes for a pretty interesting character study.

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If you feel curious, you can read a few chapters of Spellbound on Google Docs here.

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1. A book that haunts you

Haunted is more accurate, though- I’m over it now.

Lord Foul’s Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson.

When I was a child, the general view in Sweden was that Fantasy was a genre for children. It was definitely the view of the librarians at my local library, who placed everything fantasy-related in the children’s section. (S.F, on the other hand, was placed in the adult section and you had to be fifteen to take out anything from that section.) Anyhow, when I was 12, Lord Foul’s Bane was translated to Swedish, and, of course, but among the children’s books. It is, in case you haven’t read it, not a book for kids, not by a long shot. Many years later I saw someone summing up the plot along those lines:

Leprosy. Trauma. Being moved to another world. Trauma. Trauma. Evil entities. Trauma. Rape. Trauma. Trauma. Trauma. Trauma. Being moved back to our world. Trauma. Leprosy. Trauma.

Now, I have never read this book since that first time, and I certainly don’t think Fantasy should never be dark, or a protagonist always heroic, so this book (and series) may be very good. But I was completely unprepared for it at 12, and definitely way too young for it. I remembered it with a queasy feeling for years, and though it doesn’t shunt me anymore, I doubt I will ever want to re-read it.

All the questions:

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This is cropping up all over my f-list right now. And as I love to talk books, so… Reading through the questions I find a lot of them quite tricky, so I don’t plan to do it in chronological order, and blithely skip those I can't figure out. :)

12. A book that came to you at the wrong time

Cut for mention of rape.

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All the questions:

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29. The one I have reread most often.

I’m a habitual re-reader. Most of the books I read during a year are rereads. Which one I reread the most, though- no idea. But here is an incomplete list of books I return to again and again.

Diana Wynne Jones: Deep Secret, which is certainly the Jones I reread most often. But all of her books get reread now and then.

Elizabeth Kostova: The Historian

Lois McMaster Bujold A Civil Campaign which I tend to reread when I feel fragile, but I love everything of Bujold apart from her Sharing Knife-series, so all of her books are often reread.

The same with Dorothy L. Sayers- I reread all her books, apart from Five Red Herrings, but Gaudy Night is the one I reread most often.

Gwendoline Courtney: Elizabeth and the Garret Theatre

Neil Gaiman: Neverwhere

Agatha Christie. I can be counted on picking up a couple of them every year.

Tove Jansson's Moomin books.

L. M. Montgomery’s Emily-books. I like the Anne-books too, but Emily has always been closer to my heart and it’s her I return to on a regular basis.

And there are, most likely, a couple of books that slip my mind right now.

27. Want to be one of the characters.

As a very young child, I wanted to be Alice in Alice in Wonderland. When I was 13 I wanted to be Jane in Jane Eyre. I was quiet and artistic and felt very plain, so I identified a lot with her. Also, then I thought Mr. Rochester was incredibly romantic. Nowadays I still love Jane, but I don’t care for Mr. Rochester at all. Then, when I was 14, I read Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers, and got to know Harriet Vane. If I have to name one literary character which has had an actual impact on who I am today, then it’s her. I admired her independence, her struggle for self-worth, her truthfulness and her quirky sense of dress. I’m not her, of course, but she set up an ideal which I have tried to live after. I think I could have chosen worse role models.

25. Never finished it.

I don’t have any problems stop reading a book I don’t enjoy. Life’s too short for books I don’t enjoy. But I’m annoyed that I didn’t get through Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey. It’s part of a series set in a fantasy version of our world, with other mythology and gods. The heroine, Phèdre, is born into a house of courtesans (there are several, all with different specialties), but because she has a red dot in her eye she isn’t deemed worthy. Then it turns out that dot marks her as god-chosen. Which means she’s a super masochist. She’s raised to be a courtesan and spy, and about there, I lost all interest and after a year I think I can safely say I won’t pick it up again any time soon.

I know so many people who love this boo, and I think I would have loved it too- if I had read it 20 years ago. I don’t know what it was with it that didn't gel with me, just that it sort of chafed. I kept thinking how much younger me would have enjoyed this and that, things that now!Me found a bit predictable or just plain boring. It annoyed me every character were described as utterly beautiful. The world building was interesting, but I feel Lois McMaster Bujold does a similar version so much better in The Five Gods Universe.

23. Made to read at school.

I’ve been made to read William Golding’s Lord of the Flies twice, and t stands out because I hated the book the first time, and I hated it on the re-read too. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye was also a school required read I didn’t enjoy at all. Classic or not.

On the other hand, I was also required to read Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time: Swann’s Way and loved every word of it. I really wish I could read it in French.

21. Summer read.

For some reason, I tend to reread Lovecraft and M. R. James during the summer. Possibly because summer nights in Sweden aren’t dark at all, and it’s much easier to not being frightened by scary stories when it isn’t dark outside. However, I spend much of my summers in our summer house, which is on an island in the archipelago outside Stockholm. It isn’t really a good idea to read Lovecraft by the sea, especially if I’m alone in the house. Even worse if I follow up rereading Anders Fager* who mix Lovecraft mythos with very Swedish folklore. The island our summer house is on is specifically named by Fager in one of his short stories which feature the Deep Ones…

And if I reread Laurie R King’s Kate Martinelli books, I do it during the summer too. Not because they feel especially summery, but because those books live in the summer house. I don’t care for King’s books about Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, but I really like her standalones as well as the ones about Kate Martinelli. Especially the first one; A Grave Talent. I love the description of art and artist, and I also think it’s a fairly clever murder mystery.

18. Bought on a recommendation.

Most of what I read come recommended to me one way or another. But the last time I read a book explicitly recommended to me in person was The Wonder by Emma Donoghue, which My Mum had read and wanted to discuss.

It was very interesting, so I’m glad I read it. It’s a historical novel, set in the 19th century where an English nurse goes to Ireland to take care of a little girl who has stopped eating- and should already be dead from lack of food. The village considers her a saint, the nurse suspects foul play. It builds on real historical events- girls who starved themselves in religion’s name have happened over the centuries. So I can recommend the book with the caveat that it does contain sexual abuse of a minor, albeit non-descriptive.