We are the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, a multitype system serving all types of libraries. We are here to help you find new books, for yourself or for your library.

This season we are moving through the state of Minnesota, looking at an interesting fact about each county and giving you a book prompt from that fact. We will share six book suggestions to meet that prompt, to get you started on reading new books. You can also take that prompt and find any other book to meet the challenge!

This week we admire Norman County. To celebrate early Norwegian settlers, also known as Norman settlers, we’re reading books set in Norway or another Scandinavian country. 

We give you links to each of these books on our show notes page, taking you to Amazon.com. If you click on any of them, and buy anything at all – including a nice book – Amazon will send us a small percent of the profits they made on these sales. Thank you for supporting CMLE!

The Troll With No Heart in His Body and Other Tales of Trolls from Norway by Lise Lunge-Larsen and illustrated by Betsy Bowen

Born and raised in Norway, Lise Lunge-Larsen, known to many as “the Troll Lady,” met her first troll at the age of three, and the experience shaped her understanding of the natural world as a place alive and full of mysterious creatures and stories. She has been a storyteller for more than thirty years, and children still beg for “just one more troll story.” What are trolls and why do children love them so much? As tall as trees and as ancient and rugged as the Norwegian landscape from which they come, trolls are some of folklore’s most fascinating and varied creatures. In this collection of nine troll tales, Lunge-Larsen brings a combination of childhood memories and careful research to the retelling of each story, while Betsy Bowen’s striking woodcuts are as timeless and rare as the trolls themselves.

The Orange Girl by Jostein Gaarder

To Georg Røed, his father is no more than a shadow, a distant memory. But then one day his grandmother discovers some pages stuffed into the lining of an old red pushchair. The pages are a letter to Georg, written just before his father died, and a story, ‘The Orange Girl’.

But ‘The Orange Girl’ is no ordinary story – it is a riddle from the past and centres around an incident in his father’s youth. One day he boarded a tram and was captivated by a beautiful girl standing in the aisle, clutching a huge paper bag of luscious-looking oranges. Suddenly the tram gave a jolt and he stumbled forward, sending the oranges flying in all directions. The girl simply hopped off the tram leaving Georg’s father with arms full of oranges. Now, from beyond the grave, he is asking his son to help him finally solve the puzzle of her identity.

The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen

Get to know the detective in charge of Copenhagen’s coldest cases in the first electrifying Department Q mystery from New York Times best-selling author Jussi Adler-Olsen. Carl Mørck used to be one of Denmark’s best homicide detectives. Then a hail of bullets destroyed the lives of two fellow cops, and Carl – who didn’t draw his weapon – blames himself. So a promotion is the last thing he expects. But Department Q is a department of one, and Carl’s got only a stack of cold cases for company. His colleagues snicker, but Carl may have the last laugh, because one file keeps nagging at him: A liberal politician vanished five years earlier and is presumed dead. But she isn’t dead…yet.

Darkly humorous, propulsive, and atmospheric, The Keeper of Lost Causes introduces American listeners to the mega-bestselling series fast becoming an international sensation.

A Frog in the Fjord: One Year in Norway by Lorelou Desjardins 

Norwegians are the happiest people in the world, but can anyone else be happy in Norway?

Lorelou, a French woman in her mid-20s from Provence region gets a job in Oslo, Norway. She is not too inspired by this Arctic country. Are Norwegian people as cold as their weather? She is however curious to discover the Northern lights, and explore the the country’s famous landscapes. So many things are weird about Norwegian people: they go skiing in the middle of the city, take their holidays in cabins with neither water nor electricity, lit candles to make things koselig and have strange names like Odd and Bored. Learning Norwegian language, making local friends and dating are proving to be much harder than she thought. She has one year to figure out whether she wants to live there for good and make Norway her home.

Described by Forbes Magazine as one of the 5 most revealing books about Scandinavia, “A Frog in the Fjord – One Year in Norway” is the ultimate guide to understanding Norway, its people and its language as well as Scandinavian culture in general. Whether you are interested in Norway for travels, because of your family’s heritage, your love for a special Norwegian person, or because you work or study here, this book is a must-read.

The Fellowship of Ghosts: Travels in the Land of Midnight Sun by Paul Watkins

Certain geographies speak to people. We are awed by mountains, challenged by the ocean, haunted by the bleakness of deserts. The effect of landscape on human consciousness is at the heart of novelist Paul Watkins’s exhilarating travel story. Long bewitched by the stark beauty of the Scandinavian Alps, Watkins sets off among the ice-clad peaks and dark fjords of the arctic with only a tent and rucksack. On the way, he stops at rustic inns, follows the paths of other solitary travelers, navigates the punishing weather, and confronts the magisterial presence of the past among these mountains–a journey that makes for one of our finest accounts of the life and the land in the frozen north.

The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country by Helen Russell

When she was suddenly given the opportunity of a new life in rural Jutland, journalist and archetypal Londoner Helen Russell discovered a startling statistic: the happiest place on earth isn’t Disneyland but Denmark, a land often thought of by foreigners as consisting entirely of long, dark winters, cured herring, Lego and pastries. What is the secret to their success? Are happy Danes born or made?

Helen decides there is only one way to find out: she will give herself a year, trying to uncover the formula for Danish happiness. From child care, education, food and interior design to SAD, taxes, sexism and an unfortunate predilection for burning witches, The Year of Living Danishly is a funny, poignant record of a journey that shows us where the Danes get it right, where they get it wrong, and how we might just benefit from living a little more Danishly ourselves.

CONCLUSION:

Thanks for joining us! We’ll be back next week with a look at the next county and the next book prompt!