This story is component of a new collection checking out the globe via books. We’ve asked a few of our favorite authors to recommend reading that helps you be familiar with their cities as well as suggestions on literary spots to check out.
We’ll be traveling the globe with them for the next couple of months, from Madrid to Mexico City to Istanbul and beyond. Sign up for the Books e-newsletter to ensure you do not miss out on any stops!To start with, allow us make it clear to everyone that has read our books that Stockholm is a really safe city, generally totally without serial killers. Yet our capital is not harmless– a minimum of not in literature.
Authors have discussed the light of snow as well as the winter months darkness in the streets, the melancholy of the brief summertime as well as the unhappiness of the autumn. Thanks to criminal activity writers from Maj Sjöwall and also Per Wahlöö and also beyond, there is most likely not a street or park in the city where a fictitious murder has actually not been devoted(and also we recognize our extensive payment). Stockholm is positioned in the flow in between one of Sweden’s biggest lakes and also the Baltic Sea as well as has actually been cleared up considering that the Ice Age. The Riddarholmen Church, from the 13th century, is the oldest completely preserved building right here.
It is bordered by medieval structures, which subsequently are surrounded by attractive homes and also theaters from the 19th century.Although Stockholm is just one of one of the most contemporary cities in the world(for example, we don’t make use of money), the past is always present. We live on Oden Street. Near us, in the square alongside the Royal Palace, the Stockholm Bloodbath happened in 1520, when
about 100 aristocrats were performed. The fantastic warship Vasa, which sank after traveling simply 1,400 lawns on her maiden voyage in 1628, can be seen undamaged at the Royal National City Park. The unspoiled city of Birka, a Viking-age trading center, is very nearby, as well as several gods from Old Norse folklore, such as Thor, are buried– according to tradition– in the close-by city of Uppsala. Writers have actually always been drawn to this city, which is the residence of Sweden’s significant publishers, the Nobel Prize and also the Royal Dramatic Theater.
This is where musicians collect; where music is created; where film productions with Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergman as well as Ingmar Bergman took off once upon a time; as well as where David Fincher shot the American variation of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.”What should I review before I load my bags?If you can obtain your hands on” Fredman’s Epistles as well as Songs”you will get an appearance right into the Swedish spirit, if there is such a thing. The author, Carl Michael Bellman, is our very own burlesque, tragic, poetic version of Shakespeare.Another warm-up analysis pointer is a novel by Selma Lagerlöf, the initial lady to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1909:”Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness,”a ghost story regarding a very negative male who dies on New Year’s Eve. He is the last individual to pass away that year, as well as is destined lug the souls of the dead in his cart until he locates forgiveness and attempts to repair what he has broken.
What publications or writers should I bring in addition to me?”Doctor Glas, “by Hjalmar Söderberg, is a famous read– a classic publication that is relevant for new generations of visitors over and over, with its cocktail of perversions, oppression of sexuality, murder as well as moody in the city of Stockholm. You can even take an”audio walk” of”Doctor Glas” when you get here, where you pay attention to guide at the exact areas that are defined in it.If I have no time for field trip, what publications can take me there instead?The incredible island chain of Stockholm, with all its islands, beaches, cliffs, sailing boats as well as dining establishments, is really worth a minimum of a day. In Sweden we have what we call the everyman’s right, which is thepublic’s accessibility to wild, whether it is public or independently possessed land, granted by our constitution. You might camp as well as fish virtually anywhere you want.
But if you don’t have the moment, check out”Harbor “by John Ajvide Lindqvist, the writer of”Let the Right One In”as well as our very own Swedish Stephen King.”Harbor” is set in the archipelago as well as has all the wonderful ingredients you need for a scary story.What audiobook would create great company while Istroll around?Why not a book by the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer!.?.!? He won the Nobel Prize in 2011 and also is thought about a modern-day icon. His verse appears straightforward, yet it opens doors to the enigma that life is.Who are the literary symbols I may see called on road signs, statuaries or public monuments?August Strindberg’s ghost strolls the roads of Stockholm. There is a large statuary of the misogynistic, hateful, legendary however great writer, who composed the novel” The Red Room”as well as the naturalistic play “Miss Julie, “in the Tegnérlunden park, and also his words are priced estimate on the asphalt of Drottninggatan, the street where he lived throughout the ins 2014 of his life in a structure known as heaven Tower. If you can, you need to go to: Standing there looking
at Strindberg’s desk, with his pens, papers as well as books, offers authors
a particular acquainted feeling of self-control, desires and isolation.What literary trip destination– an author’s home or favored drinking opening, an incredible bookstore, an actual site of fictional motivation– would you recommend?The Nobel Prize reception is held yearly at Stockholm City Hall, an attractive structure by the water in the center of the city. In the cellar of the dining establishment Stadshuskällaren you can try any of the dinners that were served at previous receptions considering that 1901.
Perhaps you ‘d like to attempt the dinner offeredwhen Ernest Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954: smoked trout with cream-stewed spinach; beef tenderloin with artichokes, mushrooms as well as truffles; as well as pear with pistachio ice cream and also delicious chocolate sauce. Just bear in mind to book your check out in advance.On Dalagatan, a road in our part of the town, you can go to the simple apartment of Astrid Lindgren, that wrote”Pippi Longstocking “as well as many other epic children’s books.The National Library has actually built an area deep below the ground that is an exact copy of the residence of the poet Nelly Sachs, that won the Nobel Prize in 1966. Seeing her”cabin”– an utterly small area where she sat and wrote in the darkness, trying not to disrupt her ill mother– is extremely moving and oddly chilling.What’s an excellent location to snuggle with a book?The House of Culture is a modernist meeting
location in the center of the city with art events, cafes and dining establishments, movie theater,
music as well as a global authors’scene that has drawn writers such as Jonathan Franzen, Richard Ford, Margaret Atwood, Susan Faludi, Emma Cline, Philip Pullman, Hilary Mantel, Paul Auster, John Irving, Joyce Carol Oates as well as Dennis Lehane. It is, in such a way, a socialistic vision of just how society does n’t require grand salons or bourgeois interiors, and also is the result of a need to bring society to where workers as well as families pass by on a daily basis. Any person can stroll in, huddle with a book, have a coffee, play some chess or go to an exhibition.Lars Kepler is the pen name of Alexander Ahndoril and Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril. Their criminal activity fiction Joona Linna series, that includes novels such as”The Sandman” and also”The Rabbit Hunter,”has actually been equated into 40 languages.