Wednesday 16 March 2011

Other things you might like to know about New Swedish Fiction Book Club



Introductory Meeting - meet other readers, have a chat and a drink.

Come and join us!

NOTE CHANGE OF VENUE

**7pm, 24th March**

Fika, Swedish Bar & Grille
161a Brick Lane
London
E1 6SB

(map)

Nicky'll be giving out the first book, Fair Play by Tove Jansson, ready for our first proper book club session on 12th April.
(Image courtesy of Sort Of Books)


~ See you there ~

Thursday 10 March 2011

All you need to know about New Swedish Fiction Book Club


Välkommen to the New Swedish Fiction Book Club!

A new book club for new Swedish fiction, it's for anyone who's interested in finding out more about Swedish literature; anyone curious about Swedish culture; anyone who likes reading intriguing, beautiful books and talking about them with others who are enthusiastic and critical.

The book club's members will choose the books from shortlists of Swedish (and Finnish-Swedish) fiction in English translations. The focus is on books from the last 10 years, but not that many of these have actually been published, so we can be a bit flexible with this! Some of the texts might be short stories and poems, some novels. The most important thing is that they'll be interesting, imaginative and exciting (we hope).

We eventually see it leading to something bigger, maybe a London, or UK-wide network of book clubs, but we're keeping this one to 10-15 members in order to really get people talking and give everyone a chance to contribute. We intend to develop this blog into a web resource for the group, to continue discussions, post info and generally keep the excitement going. We hope to invite occasional guest speakers, and we might even make some podcasts based on conversations and ideas generated by our discussions.

The project is organised by Nicky Smalley and Agnes Broome, PhD students at UCL's Scandinavian Studies department, and subsidised through AHRC funding from UCL's Public Engagement Unit. This means the books will be cheap, or in some cases free, and there will also be some form of subsidised refreshments available.

It's also part of Nicky's research project - an added bonus. One thing to note is that will make audio recordings of the sessions. Participants will be asked to sign a consent form saying that they are happy to be recorded (the recordings might be used for the podcasts, but more of that later!)