Sweden Books

With such a long-winded subtitle I had assumed this book to be a scholarly account of Scandinavian Christmas traditions. This book is more of a light-hearted observation of the holiday, illustrated with 1960's style pen & ink drawings. Although appropriate for kids, this is not a children's story. The book was intended for the adult reader. The text would be at home as an essay found in a magazine like the New Yorker.

The cartoon illustrations by Erik Lind are really quite charming. My favorite is the "Christmas in Scandinavia today." "Today" is a 1960s living room seen featuring mid-century modern furniture, the dad watching a small TV set and the mom washing dishes in the kitchen and the kids playing with their new toys.

All in all it's a charming Christmas book valuable as an example of 1960s illustration, writing style, and mid-century publishing technique.

The binding is a saddle stitch (stapled) paperback, with french flaps. 6 x 9", 32 pages. 10 black & white illustrations. The cover is printed in 2 inks (green and black). This book was self-published in the days before self-publishing was popular! It looks like the text was printed with a letterpress.

The book is rich of color photographs, drawings, and analytical texts. With its detailed maps, the book is an invaluable guide to explore the fantastic architecture to be found in Stockholm and its surroundings. A must book if you are interested in Nordic architecture.

I was thrilled to find so much primary documentation in such an easy to understand format! In this book I found not the one or two useful pieces of firsthand evidence that most books include, but page after page of photographs of actual objects from the time period I am interested in. Anyone who is looking to add small details to their re-enactment gear will find this book an invaluable resource and inspiration.

The NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) was founded in 1884 by the Reverend Benjamin Waugh and is today the leading charity in England specialising in child protection and the prevention of cruelty to children. It is the only children's charity in the United Kingdom with statutory powers that enable it to take action to safeguard children at risk of abuse. Together with John Wiley the NSPCC have started a book series in child protection and policy with the aim of a practical application to research.
Evaluating family support is the result of a review and discussion of support for families on a national basis and the evaluation of that support. Ilan Katz, the team leader of the British Children's Fund prevention team and John Pinkerton, the head of the School of Social Work at the Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland, have together with 23 contributors looked at the need for international comparison in the evaluation of family support, the issues involved and studied the research available in countries like the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, England, Hong Kong, New Zealand, America, Australia and Sweden.
This book shows the international or global perspective of family support with service and policy subject to constant tension that oftentimes undermine finding solutions for the problems facing the modern family, like the promotion of day care in other to have parents on the workforce versus the need for parents to spend quality time with their children. There has been a trend to think about an open or complex systems approach, where biological and social systems are not driven by equilibrium but by complex and constant change. Developing family support systems should therefore be based on a model that uses an ecological approach, a transactional model of development, resilience perspective and social inclusion.
This book will be of value for policy makers and administrators responsible for servive and support of families.

Professor Joav Merrick, MD
Director, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and Medical director, Division for Mental Retardation, Box 1260, IL-91012 Jerusalem, Israel, email: jmerrick@internet-zahav.net

This cocktail table style book presents a number of nice photographs of royal palaces and manors in Sweden. An excellent text of architectural discourse is included in both English and Swedish. Additionally, you will learn much of the royal family heritage, traits, and history. A thin book of only 100 pages with 50% Swedish text. Mycket bra!

We just came back from driving around Norway and Sweden for 10 days. This map was excellent--better than most that we saw there. We even helped a few other travelers find roads on our map that they couldn't find on the ones they had. However, it lacks any sort of distance reference--which will drive you crazy. No box for driving times city to city, and would you believe no scale! I ripped it off of the hard cover because it was too hard to fold up to drive with otherwise. This map is HUGE! But because it is so big it is easy to find everything. However, the scale will throw you off--it doesn't look like it will take so long to get everywhere. It is great for showing the roads well though--right down to the curves and corners--easy to find where you are on the map at nearly any given time.

Advice: Expect it to take longer than it looks on the map. The old roads are very narrow and often one lane, so you are pulling over to fit on-coming traffic which really slows down the time it takes to get places. Plus all of those photo stops! The new roads are good but not that fast most of the time because they often just end at car ferries. Allow about 45 min to 75 min for each ferry crossing, because you will usually have to wait 10 min to 30 min. to board and for it to shove off, and then the crossing and unloading time. They are very efficient but not at quick as a bridge. Don't skip all of the old roads for tunnels--you will miss all of the best scenery! And don't feel you have to take a cruise ship to see the fjords--we think we had a better view from the roads because we kept going up and down all of the hillsides in and out of the fjords. You can always take a boat excursion on individual fjords if you want to get out on the water. If you are going in the summer don't skip your shorts and sunblock because you just checked the average temps. on the computer. Even though it is usually chilly, it was over 80 degrees F the whole time we were there and we mostly had pants and jackets in our cases because the average was supposed to be about 60 degrees. Look at YHA Hostels for sleeping--they were fantastic in Scandinavia and great for families and couples, but buy a YHA membership and book early.

This map is a must if you are driving around Norway and Sweden, but you should buy another general map so you can check driving times and distance.

This is a beautiful book, plenty of color pictures and pleasant, slightly scholarly read.

Sweden's in WWII is an enigma to many, including to Swedes. Denham gives an excellent view from inside of the role that Sweden played. For six years, he lived in Sweden, dealing with those who supported both sides in the war, while providing essential intelligence to Great Britain. For those who don't speak Swedish, this is an excellent introduction to a little-know player on the WWII stage.

In addition to the "Instructions" given to Governor Johan Printz, this book contains court records from New Sweden, correspondence from Gov. Printz, and information relative to the Swedish colonists' relations with the Dutch. Furthermore, it contains several valuable photographs of critical documents, places, and historical markers.

See also Isreal Acrelius's A History of New Sweden (1874).

This book reprints the text of Wilfred Blunt's 1971 biography, "The Compleat Naturalist: A Life of Linnaeus," adding lavish illustrations, a brief bibliography by Gavin Bridson, an explanation of Linnaeus's system of taxonomy by William T. Stearn, and a comment on modern biological systematics by C. J. Humphries. Carl Linnaeus was an egotistical, vain, and sometimes difficult man, but he was also a beloved teacher, and his impact on natural history is undeniable. Blunt is a charming writer, and he skilfully tells the story of Linnaeus's rise from obscure provincial to famous professor, drawing on Linnaeus's own writings and those of his contemporaries. The illustrations bring to life the places Linnaeus lived and traveled and the plants that he observed, described, and named. Blunt has less to say about Linnaeus's science; readers who want to know how Linnaeus's contemporaries reacted to his ideas and what effect they had on biology will have to turn to works by Lisbet Koerner and others. But if you've ever wondered who was responsible for modern scientific nomenclature, and what it was like traveling in Sweden and Europe in the eighteenth century, this book is a fine place to start.