February 2024 - Memoirs of Stockholm Sven

“Briskly entertaining . . . I was reminded more than once of Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News . . . combines a distinctive northerly setting with a cast of likable eccentrics . . . Rather than any creed or belief system, it is Sven’s various friendships, intense but understated, that sustain him and give his life an order and purpose.” - Ian McGuire, New York Times Book Review 

The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven

by Nathaniel Ian Miller (2021)

Discussion -  February 21, 1pm

In 1916, Sven Ormson leaves a restless life in Stockholm to seek adventure in Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago where darkness reigns four months of the year and he might witness the splendor of the Northern Lights one night and be attacked by a polar bear the next.

For more about the book, check out its page on BookBrowse.

Copies of the book, including audiobook, are available at the library and for sale at Main Street Bookends and Gibson's. The book stores offer a discount if you tell them it's for this group. You can also buy the streaming audiobook from Libro (choose your favorite local bookstore) or other streaming outlet. It's not on Libby/Hoopla, unfortunately.

Additional Resources (check back for more through the month):

• Recommended music while you read: Antonín Dvořák (see MoSS page 36)
  
• the library owns a CD
• there's an album you can borrow on Hoopla
  
• or listen on amazon music, Spotify, or YouTube
• Author's website: Nathaniel Ian Miller.com
• Author interview with Northshire Bookstore on YouTube here.
• Author interview on NPR's Marginalia podcast here.  
• Learn about (or plan a visit to) Svalbard (aka Spitsbergen): 
• Visit Svalbard.com/ (this site is worth surfing if only for the gorgeous photos on each page)
• Svalbard Museum
• A trapper's life on Svalbard
• I love this video teaching about Polar explorers' clothing and gear then versus now.
• Save this one for after you read (has some spoilers) Book guide to MoSS

Read more...

• I highly recommend this nonfiction memoir: A Woman in the Polar Night, by Christiane Ritter (1938). It inspired Miller as the real life Sven has a small role in it. Hard to find in libraries, but I have one copy from ILL available now.
  
• Books with "setting as character": https://bookriot.com/books-with-setting-as-a-character/