It was hard to pick just a few, but these definitely stand out.
Ernest Hemingway, The First 49 Stories
I keep coming back to this one. I have an old paperback copy that used to belong to my father. I’ve been through it so many times, yet I always come across a ‘new’ story. Hemingway is much misunderstood. There are many writers who describe the loneliness and detachment of modern life. Hemingway is always connected – to simple pleasures: a rising trout, wild strawberries, and to agony and fear. But never to boredom.
Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
This seminal novel was Hemingway’s prime source material. Always amusing, exciting, disobedient. Always on our hero’s side.
Philip Roth, The Zuckerman trilogy: The Human Stain, American Pastoral, I Married a Communist
Roth has a great sense of humour and plenty of self-irony. These are effectively contemporary history lessons paired with bitter-sweet lamentations about … everything.
Lena Andersson, Son of Svea: A Tale of the People’s Home (translated into English by Sarah Death)
A wonderful account of the political and cultural mechanics behind the Scandinavian social democratic system, its strength and weaknesses.
Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (translated into English by Antonia Lloyd-Jones)
This is marvellous and weird pseudo crime fiction. Funny, too. This reads like Flann O’Brien.
Vigdis Hjorth, Will and Testament (translated into English by Charlotte Barslund)
A painful and interesting novel about the secrets families keep buried and the cost to all involved when they are exhumed.
Lars Elling is the author of the Norwegian bestselling debut novel, The Princes of Pauper’s Pond, translated by Don Bartlett ,and published by Orenda Books on 24th September 2026.
