A collection of winter stories by Selma Lagerlöf, now available in English for the first time and revealing the breadth of this exceptional storyteller’s skills. In a format beloved of nineteenth-century European readers, this is a selection of stories designed to be read aloud in the family circle in the festive season, like those that Charles Dickens contributed to Yuletide almanacs and annuals in his own country. In this Penguin Classics volume, Lagerlöf weaves together magic and miracles, Swedish folklore and timeless fables, darkness and light, heartfelt joy and festive wonder, adds a dash of ghost tale and tops it all with a glittering title story that will appeal to anyone who has ever loved reading and longed for a new book under the Christmas tree. A collaborative project by a team of seasoned Lagerlöf translators, Linda Schenck, Peter Graves and Sarah Death.

“Among women novelists of great talent or genius, none, in my opinion, is to be placed higher than Selma Lagerlöf” (Marguerite Yourcenar)

Children’s stories for grown-ups too! Are you ready for adventures? Don’t you often find that on your way, something unexpected happens? This story collection chronicles the escapades of young people in Finland in days gone by. Follow them as they engage with nature and meet strange creatures. They discover the power of magic and dreams and get back home safely, maybe a little wiser.

Claire Lidman died fourteen years ago. So why does she appear in the background of a recent holiday snap taken in Venice?

Her husband brings the anomaly to Hans Rekke and Micaela Vargas. Initial scepticism gives way to cautious belief, but Rekke is falling apart again and Vargas has her own problems. Her gangster brother is threatening to silence her if she doesn’t get off his case.

Meanwhile, Rekke’s daughter Julia has a new boyfriend she’s determined to keep secret. He sees something in her she can’t see herself, but there are hints of a darker side.

Most troubling of all, Rekke is hearing whispers of a name he hasn’t heard for years. A rival from his youth whose restless evil links all the threads in this incipient case. The pieces are laid and he’s already one move ahead. The name of the game is revenge.

A book about life at Lilla Hyttnäs in Dalarna, home of Carl and Karin Larsson, in the late 19th century. Written by Ulrika Ewerman, with photographs by Mira Wickman, translation by Ian Giles, and styling by Elsa Billgren.

Convinced of his own moral and intellectual superiority, the nameless protagonist of this debut novel is also paralyzed by self-consciousness. Yet, inspired by Stephen King’s On Writing, he decides to dedicate four hours a day to work on his own novel over the course of one summer. Only, he must also balance his creative goals with a part-time government job and looking after his girlfriend’s possibly brain-damaged Pomeranian dog.

Too bad he’s uninspired by his job, almost kills the dog, and realizes his novel is slowly morphing into misguided fan fiction about French writer and enfant terrible Michel Houellebecq.

Even when he’s alone, he can’t help but pontificate before an imagined audience, making over-the-top cases for and against all manner of culture war battles, referencing everyone from Spike Lee to Grumpy Cat. He obsesses over identity politics, and veers into dangerous territory as he and his androgynous girlfriend engage in sexual role-play. He’s an emblem of all the follies of our age—happily unaware that in his refusal to be ordinary, he’s become a walking cliché of misguided manhood.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a portrait of a person belatedly coming of age, a blistering takedown of a privileged man who believes he’s a revolutionary, and “a crackling firework display of comic brilliance” (Svenska Dagbladet, Sweden).

‘The Rocks Will Echo Our Sorrow’ is a polyphonic, elegaic testimony to the Indigenous Northern Sámi people forcibly displaced from their homeland along the Norwegian seaboard in the first half of the twentieth century.

Published by the University of Minnesota Press.

The telegram reaches Sweden on the morning of Friday, 10 December 1896. Sixty-three-year-old Alfred Nobel has passed away quickly and unexpectedly during the night, at his villa  in the Italian city of San Remo. The news makes it into Afton­bladet the same day. ‘Every educated Swede feels sorrow at  the loss of one of their greatest countrymen,’ writes the news-paper, while avoiding the question that will soon be on every-one’s lips: Who will now inherit his riches?

NOBEL: The Enigmatic Alfred and His Prizes is the fascinating story of the path from Alfred Nobel’s youth to the high-stakes drama that enveloped the dynamite king’s last will and testament. Set against the backdrop of cities such as St Petersburg, Hamburg and Paris, and framed by family quarrels, heartbreak, successes and betrayals, NOBEL is also a captivating account of nineteenthcentury Europe that explores its political currents, literary treasures and scienti?c genius. This is a story about breaking boundaries.

The awardwinning author, journalist and member of the Swedish Academy, Ingrid Carlberg, has combed through archives in multiple countries, unearthing hitherto unknown sources that cast new light on the man who dreamed of doing good for humanity. She combines the researcher’s scholarly rigour with the readability and verve of a narrative journalist. In NOBEL, she has written the first cohesive, comprehensive work to tell the story of Alfred Nobel and the background to the Nobel prizes.