Wednesday, April 11, 2012

After Stieg Larsson, whom? April 2012 LA Times Magazine features stories on amazing Stockholm and some prominent Swedish crime novelists -and explains why you should be reading them!



Sweden.se video: Swedish Midsummer for Dummies. March 28, 2012.
http://youtu.be/u8ZLpGOOA1Q

Please take a peek when you can at these two pieces that appeared Sunday in the Los Angeles Times Magazine, a newspaper that for all of its problems -some chronicled here- unlike the Miami Herald, still runs a Sunday supplement that pleasantly surprises readers.

A magazine supplement that unlike others I could name, isn't larded with fashion photo shoots of B-list actors, stilted charity photos or all the entertainment and celeb stories that didn't make it into the paper during the week, which you promptly zip thru in three minutes.
That's not what advertisers want so there's almost always 3-4 things there worth checking out. 

Everything else being equal, for the popular Swedish crime novel authors mentioned so favorably below in the essay -who are, to be honest, mostly unknown to the average fiction reader in the United States- this positive PR in a major American newspaper definitely beats being just another name thrown on a long list of suggested "Summer Reading" in next month's issue in a newspaper somewhere across the country, since as we all know, "Summer Reading" sections are still one of the things that cause publishing houses to spend some coin in promotion, and not just the annual N.Y. Times issue.

(I've been reading that particular issue consistently since I was about 12 or 13 years-old. I even took a copy with me the last of the three years I attended the Bob Griese-Karl Noonan sports summer camp in Boca Raton, which was from 1971-'74.)

Of course, the most important question, actually, I suppose, more of a two-parter, is 
a.) what sort of distribution will these authors get in the U.S. to build on their existing popularity and the positive media buzz, and,
b.) how clever will their agents be at seizing (creating) the sorts of clever promotional opportunities they need to cut thru the clutter and build upon this buzz to show open-minded American book consumers that the Swedish crime novel genre is more than one very curious and talented man named Stieg Larsson.

Or at least so it seems to me from my perch here in South Florida, far from Södermalm 

Hotel J, Nacka Strand, Stockholm, Sweden


Hotel J, Nacka Strand, Stockholm, Sweden.
I'd absolutely love to be able to stay here for a day or two while I'm visiting this summer, but it might not work out with my schedule. 
Update: It didn't and I went on my trip in January of 2013, when being near water didn't seem so important as it would have in the summer!
But I did walk by and around it and it's really something

Eat, drink, shop, stay and stare—a tip sheet to the stunning little big city of Stockholm  

(FYI: Since it isn't mentioned for some reason, the main photo for the article is one taken of ice floes in the water looking towards Gamla Stan and the Palace.)

The beautiful photo essays are divided into four categories:





Mysterious Sweden
Turns out LISBETH SALANDER is far from alone when it comes to compelling plots and intriguing characters in Nordic crime fiction  
By John-Henri Holmberg

Authors mentioned include  Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö, Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell, Leif G.W. Persson, Anders Roslund, Börge Hellström, Lars Kepler, Liza Marklund, Åsa Larsson, Håkan Nesser, Kristina Ohlsson, John-Henri Holmberg, Katarina Wennstam and Karin Alfredsson

http://www.latimesmagazine.com/2012/04/mysterious-sweden.html

Jonna Dagliden, Stockholm, Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell, Leif G.W. Persson, Anders Roslund, Börge Hellström, Lars Kepler, Liza Marklund, Åsa Larsson, Håkan Nesser, Kristina Ohlsson, John-Henri Holmberg, Sweden, Los Angeles Times, 

No comments:

Post a Comment