Mikael Niemi Book order

Harlem, 1931. In the heart of the Great Depression, invention is the mother of necessity to make ends meet. Sté phanie St. Clair, known as ' Queenie', had already understood this when she landed in New York almost twenty years before. Inventiveness when you are a woman and you are black is much more than a necessity. It's a question of survival. In a few years, this young immigrant West Indian servant freed herself from the weight of ancestral servitude. Even better, she created her own American dream: the underground Harlem numbers game. Hers is an ascent that makes people cringe, both with the local authorities and the white mafia. Dutch Schultz, aka. the Dutchman, an unscrupulous mafioso, intends to take control of the kingdom of the "Frenchy." But that's without taking into account the determination and impetuosity of Queenie, whose heavy past continues to guide her steps... After the critically acclaimed Giant and Bootblack, Mikaë l takes us to the Harlem of the prohibition for the final chapter of his New York triptych in sumptuous chiaroscuro, to meet a woman as strong as she is enigmatic.

"On the German front, in the spring of 1945: the war leaves only death and destruction in its wake. To escape the horror of the present, Al, an American soldier, the only survivor of his unit, immerses himself in the memories of his New York life. Son of German immigrants, born in the United States, he was not yet ten years old when, in one night, under the approving eyes of anti-immigrant Americans, he lost his parents and his home in a terrible fire. Turning his back on his origins, Al has no choice but to live on the streets; he becomes a Bootblack, a shoe shiner. With his friend Shiny, they somehow manage to survive by sticking together. Six years later, in 1935, they meet Buster and the ambitious Diddle Joe. And then there's Maggie, the girl Al is in love with and whose esteem he ardently longs for. And this, even as she makes it clear to him that they do not live in the same world. New York offers no future for the poor, Al understood that. He is therefore determined to earn more money, whatever the means. But he does not imagine, at that point, that the war which threatens will soon give him an appointment with his past..."--Amazon.com

New York, early 1930s. A mysterious, laconic Irish colossus known as 'Giant' sweats blood, along with his fellow immigrants, to build the skyscrapers of Rockefeller Center. For a while, he has not received a reply to the typewritten letters he continues to send, as well as money, to the other side of the ocean, to Mary Ann, the wife of one of his colleagues who died accidentally. Giant, who seems to be afraid of nothing, still has not found the courage to reveal to the young woman that she is a widow ... What does her silence mean? An entrancing everyday working-class tale with the majestic background of the rising skyscrapers of New York.

To Cook a Bear is the fantastic story of revivalist preacher Lars Levi Laestadius and the young Sami boy he saves from a ditch and cares for. It is the summer of 1852 in the Kengis village of Sweden's far north, and Jussi - as the boy is called - has fled from a cruel home plagued by abuse, starvation, and alcoholism. Jussi becomes the preacher's faithful disciple. Laestadius is an avid botanist, and with Jussi in tow he sets out on long botanical treks to teach him all about plants and nature; but also how to read, write and not least to love and fear God. For it is revivalist times, and thanks to Laestadius, impassioned faith spreads like wildfire among the locals. While the preacher's powerful Sunday sermons grant salvation to farmers and workers, they gain him enemies among local rulers, who see profits dwindle as people choose revival over alcohol. One day a maid goes missing in the deep forest, and soon thereafter another disappears. One of them is found dead, the other badly wounded, and the locals suspect a predatory bear is at large. The constable is quick to offer a reward for capturing the bear, but the preacher sees other traces that point to a far worse killer on the loose. Along with Jussi, the preacher reinvents himself as something of a forensic expert, unaware of the evil that is closing in on him. A gripping and vivid read, To Cook a Bear manages to both entertain and to burrow deep down into life's great philosophical questions. Reminiscent of Victor Hugo's Les miserables and Marilynne Robinson's Lila, To Cook a Bear goes straight to the heart. Translated from the Swedish by Deborah Bragan-Turner

Forget The Hitchhiker's Guide, this is the only handbook you need to navigate your way through the goings on of outer space.

Winner of the equivalent of the Booker prize for Sweden, Mikael Niemi's narrative of a young lad growing up in an isolated town in the Sweden of the 1960s is a story of longing.