I can't believe this wonderful book is no longer available in the English language. Fortunately my son and I speak German (where Lindgren is held in high esteem and this book continues to be reprinted) but I'd love to give away copies to his friends who only speak English. It is one of the best children's books ever written and movingly deals with issues such as loss, loyalty and courage in a way that is timeless and appeals to all ages. Could some English language publisher please reprint it.

This story is, well, brillant. It's a saga of brotherly devotion, high adventure, scary places, and glorious times. It's through the looking glass, over the next mountain and around the corner to the place in time where you most want to be, with the people you love the best. It fills a space in your heart and leaves an ache at the same time. And it's good. You know those books that you can't BEAR to have end? The ones where you want just one more page? Well, move this to the top of the list - because the ending, while absolutely perfectly satisfying, leaves you on the edge of your seat wondering what happened next. That's one (of a long list) why it's such a perfectly brillant children's book - your imagination takes it from there. This is not a story to read just once, but over and over, and to share with the people that you love the best.

I'm thrilled to find out that som many people around the globe enjoy this book. I read it for the first time when I was six years old (I'm now 21) and it's still my favourite novel. Astrid Lindgren has written other stories with similar themes, but this is, in my opinion, by far her best. I feel a bit sorry for all of you who read it as children, and who are not able to read it again, as adults. The way I see it there are two alternatives. One, wait for a reprint, or two, learn Swedish and get the original version!

The Magic Lantern is not a page turner. The autobiography of the swedish film director Ingmar Bergman is the kind of book that needs time to be read, not because its boring or too deep, but because its so good so enjoyable and every chapter so wonderful that its a shame to finish it too quickly. The Magic Lantern is the life of Bergman but he hardly writes about his movies, he writes about his childhood, his life in the theater, the women of his life, his relationships with his children, his health, politics... this book will help you understand one of the greatest filmmakers of our time.

This book is a moving, candid account of the great director's often turbulent life. It is written the same way that his films are made: full of humor and tender observation. I was deeply touched by it and inspired by his creative spirit.

The Blue Mother centers around the recollections of two brothers. Man, are these two screwed up fellas! Benno is a mentally ill basket case who's institutionalized for an attempted suicide due to several bizarre homosexual encounters. His brother Raf may be more intelligently aware, but he's a psycological basket-case as well as alcoholic & marital cheat. The book has a soap opera-like theme to it, but Kihlman is a brilliant writer and the novel is hallucinatorily surreal. Here's another amazing writer virtually unknown to American readers & it's a shame. He's a genius.

Sven Lindqvist continue to examine the history of Western racism after his magnificent "Exterminate all the Brutes". But this time he does not search for the racist ideology itself but for the men and women who questioned the basics in the racist ideology. Well known, and forgotten fighters of racist thought, are here displayed with their work and arguments against the racist idea and thought. But Lindgvist doesen't stop there. The battle between racists and their opponents are described, with an intense feeling, that almost makes you feel a part of the discussion. This is a great book, although the reader would benefit to first read "Exterminate all the brutes" before reading this one.

Although the prose is interrupted by a few screenplay-esque intrusions and transitions, Sunday's Children is a truly smooth read. A must for any Bergman fan.

I read this book as an undergrad, and was moved by it. I wasn't moved so much by the analysis of genocide, which I found pretty ordinary (but useful), but by his method of drawing on literary texts from the turn of the century, and his analysis of them. After reading this text, I went out and devoured Joseph Conrad's works, and I have never looked at H.G. Wells' work again in the same way. If you are interested in this literary period, or in linking these fiction works with the thought of European genocide, then get the book. If you are only interested in the roots of genocide, then check it out in the library before you buy it, to see if it will suit your purposes.

. . .and I say this as someone who has spent several years studying military history and is currently going through a period of reading first hand accounts of terrible happenings in Africa (such as "Me Against My Brother"). It adds historical continuity to the Nazi war against the Jews, and unfortunately that continuity leads straight back to Victorian England and other 19th century European powers (and certainly well back into history, but the author doesn't go that far as pointed out by other reviewers) and their "developmental" policies in their colonial empires.

It is an engaging read and structured in an interesting way. I only realized that it was a translated work after I read it, which is a great kudo to the translator. I would actually give it 4.5 stars simply because in many places it is unclear whether he is quoting historical texts without citation or just paraphrasing them, which can be an important distinction to keep clear. But not having so finely a graded scoring system I am erring on the good side.

This short book doesn't attempt to say it all about genocide, racism, imperialism or the current state of Africa - but once you've read it, all those subjects will make a lot more sense.

It's beautifully written. In part it is a travel journal recounting Lindqvist's own slow journey across the Sahara. This is the least developed piece of the narrative, but it gives light relief to the other material. More substantial is Lindqvist's deconstruction of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," the iconic European novel of Africa. With a light touch, Lindqvist sets Conrad's writings in the context of Europe's developing ideas of Africa in the 1890s, as a glorious playing field, a treasure-house to be looted, a distant extension of the intrigues of the European capitals.

At its heart, Lindqvist's extended essay is a history of Europe's colonial instinct for genocide. He argues that Hitler's Holocaust was not an aberration in European history, but rather a logical extension of the policies used by the British in Sudan, the Belgians in the Congo, the French in Mali, and so on. Hitler's only difference was that he sought colonial expansion within the boundaries of Europe (a crime against humanity), rather than overseas (the spread of civilisation).

Lindqvist charts how European imperialists seized on the emerging theories of Charles Darwin to justify genocide on pseudo-scientific grounds. And also how Germany, not initially among the imperialists, spawned the most articulate opponents of colonialism. Later, when Bismarck set out to get an empire of Germany's own, funded by Germany's rising industrial might, the prevailing scientific philosophy in Germany became increasingly racist - setting the ground for Hitler.

People argue that since Lindqvist published this book, monstrous slaughters in Cambodia and Rwanda have destroyed his thesis. Not so. It is not hard to argue that both Cambodia and Rwanda's genocides were a reaction, at least in part, to European or American policies. Even if you choose not to accept that argument, there can be no denying that Lindqvist's fundamental thesis remains. Europeans in Africa (and elsewhere, including Australia) brought with them the civilisation of racism and the gun. All else is unimportant.

It's like reading a script for a masterpiece movie. Great book, but read it only, for full enjoyment, if you are inventive enough to do the film of the book inside your head. If you're not that kind of reader, it's still an excelent book, but you may be missing a great deal of it.

This book is fragrant with familiar Bergman film images...icy black water; musty country homes with overstuffed furniture; well-ordered lives and well-ordered people quietly coming apart in a particularly polite Scandanavian manner. It makes one thing clear - the Bergman leitmotif, characters at once overcome but distant from themselves - simultaneously subjects and objects - is no artifact of his cinematic technique. He depicts his interiors much as we might imagine them from his exteriors. And as in film, images of nature represent the soul.

Read this book. It will haunt you. It most probably will not alter your conclusions about love- but it will alter the way you think about the subject. It goes beyond easy categories of tragedy (although it is certainly that). It depicts the human condition as an imprisonment so tortuous, so hopeless, so inherently perverse, that it somehow becomes sublime. Misery as meditation. It will haunt you.

Though this story easily deserves 5 stars, it suffers slightly due to the author's agenda (she was commissioned to write a geography book for children). Knowing this, it is easy to hurl criticism at those chapters that seem to exist solely for the purpose of education. Nonetheless, once this minor fault (and I am not really sure you can call it a fault) is recognized, the story of Nils is a fantastic one, seemingly not at all distant from native folklore and fairy tales, rich with an earthiness that simply doesn't exist in modern children literature. Of course, Lagerlof does more then simply make a modern day fairy-tale. There are passages here that are simply too delightful for description; one which comes to mind is a gathering of all the animals to celebrate the coming of spring--the image and significance crafted by the author are bound to stay with the reader for a life-time. I haven't read anything else by Lagerlof, and only found this book by accident at a local vendor. If I have any complaint it is that Dover does not offer the sequel to this work (at this writing anyway), though apparently another publisher offers it at a much higher price. I think anyone who enjoys folktales/folklore and whimsical animal fantasies (I.E. Wind in the Willows, the Moomin books, etc.) will find this book very rewarding and enjoy the opportunity to read an unknown classic (in Sweden, Nils actually appears on their money!)

When you read this book if you read it by yourself or to your children it pulls you right in. The beautiful destriptions of the land gives you a geographic picture. The stories give you good examples and the whole book gives you something that you will never forget. This is a book you want to read over and over.

My dad read me this book when I was just young in Swedish. He is from Sweden and wanted his children born in America to know the culture and history of his homeland. That is what this book is about. It's actually a story of the geography of Sweden from the south up to the north. Taken from the view of a young trouble maker,who shrunken, rides on the back of a wild goose you get to experience the adventure with him. A delightful, delightful book.

Diva by Monika Fagerholm is on my all time top 10 chart, but for some reason it took me several months to get into reading her first novel. I read this book in Finnish, so I don't know if the translation's good, but I can assure you that it takes some work to spoil this brilliant book. Perhaps not quite as magical as Diva, this novel is in any case a wonderful study of childhood, family relationships and changes in society. There's always some sadness in Fagerholm's world, but it's sweet sadness, very close to a certain kind of numb satisfaction. Her style is unique. Strongly recommended.

This book is written in a captivating style. It is dreamy and innocent and lets the reader make his own conclusions. It celebrates summer, imagination and childhood (most of the book is narrated through Thomas, 9 years), but in the same time it is a melancholy book. I have read the book in Finnish and I hope that the English translation is as good. I sincerely recommend Wonderful Women by the Sea.

Monika Fagerholm's first novel is a marvelous evocation of Finland in the 60s, covering two Finland-Swedish families who meet every summer at their vacation homes. A big hit in Scandinavia, this novel should be of interest to American readers as well. Fagerholm is finishing a new novel in Swedish, Diva, which should be published soon.

It is lazy of me to make such an obvious comparison but this book reminded me of both Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow and Snow Falling On Cedars.

It has the same sense of place as Peter Hoeg's novel and the way is captures the feel of the Scandanavian landscape and people is wonderfully evocative.

At the same time it is a rather gripping whodunnit a la David Guterson's book and the combination of the two makes this a wonderful and gripping read.

One criticism which another of other reviewers here have flagged up is the translation. I am no expert on this stuff but at times I was very aware that I was reading a translation (and therefore an interpretation) of the original work and some passages were stilted and didn't flow as much as others. Obviously this may be the case in the original language but I wouldn't have thought so. I found myself reading some passages two or three times as they didn't make sense immediately.

Nonetheless it is a novel worth the effort and I would like to read more of her work in English.

A young man and woman are brutally stabbed to death in their tent while camping in beautiful surroundings beside a river in the mountains of Sweden. Though a number of people were in the area at the time, no one has apparently seen or knows anything and the crime remains unsolved for years.

Bleak, slow moving who-done-it style mystery sent in a remote area of Sweden, this book is a compelling read because of its characters. As well as being a complex crime novel, an intricate puzzle with clues to be picked up along the way, this is also a psychological thriller exploring the depths of human depression. The theme of this story is loneliness & being the outsider - Johan is an outsider in his own family, the Starhill community is apart from the regular country people, Annie is outside the school community she teaches in, the Lapps are outside mainstream Swedish society, and Birger is the ultimate symbol of aloneness.

This was my 2nd reading of this novel and was most helpful, the novel is so disjointed with several plot lines that this time I noticed so many more clues along the way. Events take place over years, eventually the different threads come together. I really enjoyed this book but more because of the all too realistic characters & the vivid detailed descriptions of the landscape than the actual crime plot.

During a holiday in 1994 visiting Oslo and Bergen I was given a gift of "Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow" (F. David Translation). I finished it on my flight back to San Francisco and felt the utter void experienced after reading a book that one feels shall not have any peer. Fortunately, I was wrong. It took only two years to find "Blackwater" and Kerstin Ekman. Blackwater is a novel of vast human perception blending fatalistic destiny and paganism along with basic Sherlock Holmes sleuthing all set against a sometimes desolate, but beautiful and lonely landscape that conceals a constant undercurrent of emotional arousal. An aura of mystery and suspense surrounds each and every highly descriptive locale within the novel from the initial murder site in the woods to a secret mountain hideaway along the Norwegian border to an apartment in Stockholm and many others along the way. This has to be one of the finest novels that I have ever read regardless of genre.