Here are 100 books that Norwegian by Night fans have personally recommended if you like
Norwegian by Night.
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I’ve always been interested in books that explore themes of identity, with characters either discovering who they are under extreme pressure or who they’re not. I also love books that work on several different levels, especially ones that seem as if they’re "just" a thriller, but there’s so much more going on underneath. This list has some great examples of that. Can characters in a novel have more than one identity? And do they - and we as readers - always know who we are? I’m a pseudonym, so I should know...
No list of mine would be complete without a Graham Greene novel on it.
My favourite author, the one I return to time and again. I reread this novel while I was writing my book, and it had lost none of its power or, indeed, glory since the last time I read it.
The story of a whisky priest on the run in the anti-Catholic purges in South America, it’s about faith, hope, self-worth, and fear. And redemption? Maybe. Maybe not. No one writes tortured souls like Greene. No one makes you care for them more.
During an anti-clerical purge in Mexico, a priest is hunted like a hare. Too human for heroism, too humble for martyrdom, the little worldly priest is nevertheless impelled towards his squalid Calvary as much by his own compassion for humanity as by the efforts of his pursuers.
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
As an author, I love reading books that feature writers and explore their daily ups and downs as well as their larger successes and failures. Working on a novel or an article is already a harrowing task, but throw in other complications like writer’s block, dangerous fans, and sources who won’t give you the information you need, and life gets a lot more challenging. These twisty tomes explore what happens when these writers find their own stories taking some perilous turns.
The once-promising writer Jacob Finch Bonner is out of ideas and down on his luck. When his student Evan Parker proclaims that his work-in-progress is sure to be a runaway hit, Bonner waits to see if this bold proclamation comes to fruition.
After Bonner learns Parker has died, he decides he’ll usher that story into the world—as his own. But someone knows Bonner isn’t the original author. Shame and suspense intertwine and heighten as this book speeds along. I enjoyed Korelitz’s exploration of how far an author will go for praise or even relevancy.
This novel also explores an idea that fascinates me: Who “owns” a story? Just because something happened to you or your family, does that mean no one else can tell it or embellish it? Author Anne Lamott says you own everything that happened to you, but how much should you tell, and how will others react…
** NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! ** The Tonight Show Summer Reads Winner ** A New York Times Notable Book of 2021 **
"Insanely readable." ―Stephen King
Hailed as "breathtakingly suspenseful," Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot is a propulsive read about a story too good not to steal, and the writer who steals it.
Jacob Finch Bonner was once a promising young novelist with a respectably published first book. Today, he’s teaching in a third-rate MFA program and struggling to maintain what’s left of his self-respect; he hasn’t written―let alone published―anything decent in years. When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student,…
I was born in a dormitory town in Kent that serves London, but was brought up in the Midland city of Birmingham. I was an avid reader from my early days and much enjoyed espionage novels of that period, as depicted by Geoffrey Household and Eric Ambler. I was in the insurance industry for 35 years, and have woven stories around insurance investigators who became involved in situations by virtue of a routine investigation that inadvertently uncovered criminal or international activities.
This is a book which lodges between the chase type of plot, and the "who dunnit."
The chase aspect revolves around a retired MI5 agent who is brought in to investigate a realised data leakage, and the painstaking process of eliminating suspects until the perpetrator is found. Not so much a "who dunnit," as a "who’s doing it."
The story has authenticity inasmuch as the author was a member of the security services during the war.
From the New York Times bestselling author of A Legacy of Spies.
The man he knew as "Control" is dead, and the young Turks who forced him out now run the Circus. But George Smiley isn't quite ready for retirement-especially when a pretty, would-be defector surfaces with a shocking accusation: a Soviet mole has penetrated the highest level of British Intelligence. Relying only on his wits and a small, loyal cadre, Smiley recognizes the hand of Karla-his Moscow Centre nemesis-and sets a trap to catch the traitor.
The Oscar-nominated feature film adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is directed…
Coyote weather is the feral, hungry season, drought-stricken, and ready to catch fire. It’s 1967, and the American culture is violently remaking itself while the country is forcibly sending its young men to fight in a deeply unpopular war.
Jerry has stubbornly made no plans for the future because he…
The key to a great contemporary thriller—as opposed to older novels about say, Sherlock Holmes or James Bond—is that solving the mystery reveals something essential about the protagonist. In other words these are character investigations as well as whodunits, where the same action provides revelations in both arenas. It’s what I discovered I wanted to do, when I veered from “serious fiction” to the books I began to write, starting with Presumed Innocent.
Stone’s debut novel, a brilliant and prophetic book that is seldom classified as a thriller, but which finds its hero, Rheinhardt, an alcoholic former clarinetist and sometimes disc jockey, slowly unraveling a dark political conspiracy full of apocalyptic potential. Cynical, funny, lost, but deeply moral, Rheinhardt moved me intensely.
Rheinhardt, a disk jockey and failed musician, rolls into New Orleans looking for work and another chance in life. What he finds is a woman physically and psychically damaged by the men in her past and a job that entangles him in a right-wing political movement. Peopled with civil rights activists, fanatical Christians, corrupt politicians, and demented Hollywood stars, A Hall of Mirrors vividly depicts the dark side of America that erupted in the sixties. To quote Wallace Stegner, "Stone writes like a bird, like an angel, like a circus barker, like a con man, like someone so high on…
As Series Editor for Unheard Voices, I believe in the importance of the public gaining access to the voice of lived experience as it relates to the intractable issue of homelessness in our cities. Having gone through a brief period of not having any permanent residence in my twenties, I always had or felt a degree of affinity for the homeless and dedicated at least part of my career as a psychiatrist and then as a social entrepreneur to their plight.
The only work of fiction on the list, Nobel Laureate Kurt Hamson’s Hunger (1980) was a game changer for modern literature.
Firmly anchored in the point of view of the narrator, we journey painfully with a man, a writer as a matter of fact, on the way down into the depths of meaningless, despair, and hunger. Adapted into several films, the story reflects how little society values the intellectual capital of people it perceives as the dregs and describes in detail the effects of starvation on the human mind.
A worrying and unsettling read, Hunger remains the best work of fiction ever written about destitution.
One of the most important and controversial writers of the 20th century, Knut Hamsun made literary history with the publication in 1890 of this powerful, autobiographical novel recounting the abject poverty, hunger and despair of a young writer struggling to achieve self-discovery and its ultimate artistic expression. The book brilliantly probes the psychodynamics of alienation and obsession, painting an unforgettable portrait of a man driven by forces beyond his control to the edge of self-destruction. Hamsun influenced many of the major 20th-century writers who followed him, including Kafka, Joyce and Henry Miller. Required reading in world literature courses, the highly…
Just like my Upstagedheroine, my first stage experience was playing Mr. Jacey Squires in The Music Man. Both of my parents were singers and really, there’s never been a time when music—and the friends I made through music—haven’t been an important part of my life. Love of the arts can bring kids together in surprising ways. The characters in these books face varied challenges, home lives, and predicaments. But for all of them, it’s the support of friends, a dose of courage, and inspiration from the arts that get them through. That’s why I’ve chosen these five wonderful, readable, un-put-downable books.
I absolutely fell in love with twelve-year-old Bart—a kid who doesn’t complain when there are only pretzel sticks for dinner, who takes boxing lessons, but can’t punch, a kid who loves opera. Opera! (Specifically, the voice of baritone Bryn Terfel--Look him up and listen!) He lives near Oslo, Norway in shabby public housing with his loving, alcoholic, and often unemployed mother. Bart makes the best of everything in his life. His unique, gentle nature, some lovely friendships, and Svingen’s storytelling completely won my heart. I don’t know why this book hasn’t gotten more accolades—maybe because people expect every Norwegian novel to have Vikings and fjords. (Language Alert: There are some instances of the word sh*t—blame the translator).
From award-winning Norwegian author Arne Svingen comes “an uplifting coming-of-age story” (The Wall Street Journal) about a relentlessly positive teenager who uses his love of opera to cope with his less-than-perfect home life.
Bart is an eternal optimist. At thirteen years old, he’s had a hard life. But Bart knows that things won’t get any better if you have a negative attitude. His mother has pushed him into boxing lessons so that Bart can protect himself, but Bart already has defense mechanisms: he is relentlessly positive…and he loves opera.
Listening to—and singing—opera is Bart’s greatest escape, but he’s too…
Homeless following the death of his adoptive parents in a car crash and the subsequent loss of their farm tenancy, Seb decides to enrol as a residential student at the Asklepios Foundation, a College of Natural Medicine, boasting a sanctuary modelled on an ancient Greek healing temple. Spending a night…
When I began my doctorate many years ago I was somewhat disenchanted with the static nature of much economic analysis whereas it was apparent that the world is very much dynamic and continually changing. I thus committed myself then, and in a long career that followed, to exploring the ways in which Economics could be used to clarify and address the major issues that arise from innovation generation and diffusion. I present these choices as a way that other like-minded individuals may begin the exploration of innovation and discover the breadth and depth of the contribution that has been made by economists.
This manual provides an internationally agreed set of definitions of, and measurements for, different innovative activities and as such provides widely accepted guidelines by which internationally comparative data can be collected and government policies be targeted.
This may seem rather dry, but I think that it is crucial to the development of a subject area that all parties involved are using the same definitions of variables.
This has become of particular importance for many aspects of innovation have become the concerns of politicians and policymakers and past discussions have made me aware that parties more often than would wish are talking at cross purposes, using the same terms for different concepts.
What is innovation and how should it be measured? Understanding the scale of innovation activities, the characteristics of innovative firms and the internal and systemic factors that can influence innovation is a prerequisite for the pursuit and analysis of policies aimed at fostering innovation. First published in 1992, the Oslo Manual is the international reference guide for collecting and using data on innovation. In this fourth edition, the manual has been updated to take into account a broader range of innovation-related phenomena as well as the experience gained from recent rounds of innovation surveys in OECD countries and partner economies…
I have spent my working life as a journalist, author and storyteller, aiming to uncover complexity that sheds new light on stories we think we know. I got my training at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times—and from the wonderful editors of my twelve books. An Innocent Bystander, my book that deals with the Middle East, began as the story of a hijacking and a murder of an American citizen. But as my research widened, I came to see this story couldn’t be told without understanding many perspectives, including the Israeli and the Palestinian, nor could the political be disentangled from the personal.
Oslo is a theatrical rendering of the behind-the-scenes negotiations that led to the Oslo Accords in 1993.
This Tony-Award-winning play takes a perhaps unreasonably optimistic view of potential peace. Nor will reading (or better yet, seeing) this play satisfy a serious researcher’s desire for historic detail. But it lays out the emotional stakes with humanity and humor, not qualities one usually dares to associate with the conflict in the Middle East.
Winner of the 2017 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play
Winner of the 2017 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play
“Oslo is a wonderful and moving work that portrays how real diplomacy works. The play shows us what can happen when men and women on opposite sides of what is perceived as an intractable divide strive to create a shared humanity.” – Ban Ki-moon, former Secretary-General of the United Nations
“A disarmingly funny masterpiece.” – Huffington Post
I’ve been exploring Scandinavian authors for several years after working my way through the American masters of the genre (Chandler, McDonald, Parker, Burke, Stout, and others). For some reason, Scandinavians seem a lot more vicious in their writing, crafting murder scenes that are beyond gruesome. After reading the works of several Icelandic authors, I was inspired to go there and see firsthand what I was reading about, then to create my own mystery in that setting.
I wish I could write like Jo Nesbø. His detective, Harry Hole, faces the worst of the worst sadistic criminals and somehow succeeds, but not always without cost, both to himself and those near to him. In this first Hole story, the Oslo police detective is dispatched to Australia to investigate the murder of a Norwegian citizen. The case is complex, he falls in love, falls off the wagon, and finds suspects who later become victims. Nesbø has a way of keeping you guessing, with plenty of red herrings, a slew of suspects and many grisly deaths along the way. The prose is precise, inventive, compelling. In short, a master at the craft, even in his first story.
Detective Harry Hole is meant to keep out of trouble. A young Norwegian girl taking a gap year in Sydney has been murdered, and Harry has been sent to Australia to assist in any way he can.
HE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO GET TOO INVOLVED.
When the team unearths a string of unsolved murders and disappearances, nothing will stop Harry from finding out the truth. The hunt for a serial killer is on, but the murderer will talk only to Harry.
Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS
by
Amy Carney,
When I was writing this book, several of my friends jokingly called it the Nazi baby book, with one insisting it would make a great title. Nazi Babies – admittedly, that is a catchy title, but that’s not exactly what my book is about. SS babies would be slightly more…
I'm Stefán Máni, the Dark prince of Nordic noir. I was an avid book reader from an early age but I didn’t believe I could become a writer myself one day. I dropped out of school at the age of 17, worked in the fishing industry, and travelled to Europe and the United States. I started writing at the age of 23, published my first book at the age of 26, and my first best-seller at the age of 34; the thriller Black’s Game that became a popular movie in 2012. Since then I've written many best sellers and created the most popular character in Icelandic literature; detective Hordur Grímsson.
Knut Hamsun is one the greatest writers of all time, in my opinion.
And yes, I am separating the work from the person and the political views. Hamsun was a strange guy and he wrote mainly about strange guys.
Lieutenant Thomas Glahn is one of them, the protagonist of Pan. Glahn is an ex-soldier, living in a hunting hut near a small harbour town in Norway. Technically, Pan is a love story. But it is not a typical love story. It is so co-dependent and twisted that it literally hurts.
Glahn is at best an idiot, at worst some kind of a sociopath. He thinks he is in love but his “love” is not innocent and pure but ugly and even dirty. It is easy to feel sorry for Glahn, easier to simply hate him.
But the book is so well written and the story so fascinating that the…
The Nobel Prize winner's lyrical and disturbing portrait of love and the dark recesses of the human psyche
A Penguin Classic
A lone hunter accompanied only by his faithful dog, Aesop, Thomas Glahn roams Norway's northernmost wilds. Living out of a rude hut at the edge of a vast forest, Glahn pursues his solitary existence, hunting and fishing, until the strange girl Edvarda comes into his life. Sverre Lyngstad's superb translation of Hamsun's 1894 novel restores the power and virtuosity of Hamsun's original and includes an illuminating introduction and explanatory notes.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the…
