Each year, NPR – an American media organization serving as a national syndicator to a network of over 1,000 public radio stations in the U.S. – publishes The Book Concierge, an interactive, year-end reading guide. The books featured in the Concierge are chosen by NPR staff and literary critics, and are tagged with different categories such as The Dark Side (dystopias, true crime) and The States We’re In (the American experience, both true and fictional).

Simon Stålenhag’s international bestseller The Electric State can be found as a recommended read in six categories in the 2018 guide: Comics & Graphic Novels, Family Matters, For Art Lovers, Sci Fi, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction, The Dark Side, and The States We’re In. NPR adds the following review and motivation:

“Simon Stalenhag’s previous books – combinations of wild, gorgeous, photo-realistic alt-history art and tiny vignettes linked together into tight stories of people living in his imaginary pasts – have been focused on his native Sweden. But [The] Electric State is his first set in America, and it reads (and looks) like a nightmare travelogue of a young woman and her robot traveling across an American West ruined by war, populated by Lovecraftian machines and haunted by technological nightmares, in search of her missing brother. It is a sick and sweaty vision of an unlived era of American history, a post-human 1997 that never was, but almost could’ve been.”

Ivica Zubak is the director and co-writer of the critically acclaimed A Hustler’s Diary (2017), which became one of the most successful Swedish films of the year. A Hustler’s Diary was also nominated for ‘Best Script’ at the 2018 Guldbagge Awards and won the Audience Award at the 2017 Warsaw International Film Festival.

Zubak’s ability to confidently portray and imbue characters with a fresh originality has earned him the regard of the Swedish and international film industry.

The 2018 Icepick Award for ‘Best Translated Crime Novel’ has been awarded to Jo Nesbø’s The Son and Jo’s Icelandic translator Bjarni Gunnarsson. The Icepick is an annual Icelandic award given to a translated crime novel and its translator by the Iceland Noir Festival, the Icelandic Crime Writers’ Association, and the Icelandic Association of Translators and Interpreters. This is the fifth time the Icepick is awarded, and the second time Bjarni Gunnarsson and Jo Nesbø receive it together.

Adlibris, Sweden’s biggest online retailer of books, has announced their most sold titles of 2018 thus far. The hardcover list is topped by Lars Kepler’s Lazarus at No. 1, followed by Leif GW Persson’s Master Detective Willy: the Story of My Career at No. 2, and Jonas Gardell’s In Memory of an Unconditional Love at No. 4.

Niklas Natt och Dag’s The Wolf and the Watchman meanwhile claims No. 3 on the paperback list, which includes both fiction and nonfiction titles. Last out is the audiobook list, which also sees Kepler coming in at No. 1 with Lazarus, whilst Natt och Dag’s The Wolf and the Watchman is No. 4, and GW Persson’s Master Detective Willy: the Story of My Career is No. 5.

Stina Jackson is the winner of the 2018 Swedish Academy of Crime Writers’ Award for ‘Best Swedish Crime Novel’. Her powerful and evocative debut novel The Silver Road is lauded by the Academy’s jury, who gives the following motivation:

“Darkly and hypnotically [written] about marginalized existences in an atmospheric Norrland.”

Stina Jackson is the first author in the award’s 36-year history to receive it for a first novel.

Sofia Lundberg’s debut novel The Red Address Book has been shortlisted for the Suomalainen kirjakauppa Book of the Year Award 2018. Suomalainen kirjakauppa is the biggest bookseller chain in Finland. The winning author and title will be chosen by a jury consisting of Suomalainen kirjakauppa’s employees. The winning author will be announced on November 23rd.

Tom Malmquist’s In Every Moment We Are Still Alive and Jo Nesbø’s Macbeth have been chosen as two of 2018’s most notable titles by The New York Times.

The prominent American newspaper calls Malmquist’s In Every Moment We Are Still Alive, “[A] searing autobiographical novel depict[ing] a father struggling to cope with the tragic loss of his partner just as their daughter is born.”

Nesbø’s Macbeth receives the accolade: “The Norwegian crime writer emphasizes the noir aspects of Shakespeare’s tragedy by turning it into a fast-paced thriller about murder and corruption in 1970s Glasgow. The result has a sharp social edge as well as a timely political resonance.”

Fredrik Backman’s Beartown is longlisted for the International DUBLIN Literary Award 2019.

Nominations are made by libraries in capital and major cities throughout the world, making the award unique in its coverage of international fiction. A panel of distinguished international judges then narrow down the list to a shortlist of approximately 10 titles, announced on April 4. The final winner will be presented on June 12.