On the day Iceland’s banking system collapses in 2008, trash collector Gómur Barðdal stumbles upon a severed human nose in a garbage bin outside a luxury home in central Reykjavík. Soon after, his cousin, Geir Norðann, a struggling poet, is employed as a poetry tutor for that same household.

As Icelandic society unravels, the two cousins—along with Zipo, the drive-through girl, Kata, the car dealer, and Didda, the trash lady and former prison guard of the year—set out to solve the mystery of the nose. Who does it belong to, and how did it end up in the trash? Their search pulls them into a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of Icelandic society.

Important Trash is a hilarious and gripping tale of love, intrigue, and societal collapse, bursting with narrative energy and wit.

Pascal Engman (b. 1986) is one of Sweden’s most prominent thriller authors. Engman debuted in 2017 with the standalone crime novel The Patriots and followed up with the series about detective Vanessa Frank, which has quickly become a standout in modern crime fiction.

Engman’s books have been translated into more than 20 languages and have sold over 2 million copies worldwide.

Pascal Engman’s latest book No One, the seventh installment in the Vanessa Frank series, is published by Bookmark in Sweden today.

No One is a breathtaking thriller about the present society in free fall and a new, rougher, Sweden where organized crime is spreading. But in the darkness, there is also solidarity and man’s most powerful motive: to protect its children and give them a better future.

Netflix has unveiled the first footage of The Electric State, an adaptation of the narrative art book by Simon Stålenhag. The story takes place in 1994, in the aftermath of a battle between humanity and artificial intelligence that ended in a devastating stalemate. The people who died were buried; the automatons who were destroyed rust away where they fell. The defeated robots have been banished to an “exclusion zone” in the southwestern desert, while human society attempts to rebuild without the help of the mechanical beings it created.

The Electric State is directed by the Russo brothers, and Joe Russo shared his thoughts on why the book resonated with them, stating: “The texture in the images was really powerful, and it felt like a story about broken families and broken people trying to find each other in a broken world.”

The film features a star-studded cast, including Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things, Enola Holmes) as Michelle, a young woman on a quest to find her lost brother, whom she had believed to be dead. Chris Pratt (Passengers, Marvel) plays Keats, a war veteran turned long-haul trucker involved in a smuggling operation with one of his former adversaries—a construction machine named Herman, voiced by Anthony Mackie (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier). The ensemble also includes Woody Harrelson (True Detective, Triangle of Sadness) voicing the leader, Mr. Peanut, along with Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad), Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones), and Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once).

The Electric State is set to premiere on Netflix early 2025.

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Lisa Ridzén has been announced as the winner of the Swedish 2024 Book of the Year Award for her runaway bestselling debut When The Cranes Fly South at the official award ceremony held at the Gothenburg Bookfair.

The award is bestowed by Bonnier Book Clubs, that sees a jury shortlist twelve candidates according to criteria of superb linguistic quality; epic reader’s experiences that are relevant for and appealing to a wide reader demographic and stories that are truly well-executed when it comes to plot, characters and milieus. The public can then vote for their favourite novel throughout a period of several months and following a huge voter engagement, Lisa Ridzén was crowned the winner.

The jury motivation read as follows:

“What a gem! 89-year old Bo moves into our reader-hearts! After his wife has moved to a dementia care home in Östersund, Bo’s loneliness is only broken up by the visits from his home care team. Fortunately he has his beloved Sixten for company – the elk hound that his son has begun talking about removing from him… A moving, thought-provoking and tender tale that goes straight to the heart.”

Anja Gatu and Anna Nilsson are the winners of the Swedish 2024 Children’s Crime Fiction Award for The Cat Who Loved Me, the sixth book in The Cat Spies of Rosengard series.

The award is presented to an author who writes crime or suspense for children in the age 6-12, whose work has contributed to the development of the genre and inspired a greater interest in books and reading among children.

Motivation from the Crimetime jury:

“For a thrilling children’s detective series of the highest quality, with vibrant illustrations that enhance the joy of reading. It addresses current, and sometimes frightening, topics, but in a disarming and entertaining way. Its reflection of contemporary issues makes it stand out and hopefully reach a broader audience. The characters are clever, smart, cute, and absolutely irresistible. We love our spies in Rosengård – because after all, everybody wants to be a cat”.