I love this but it was so long. So so long. I just cannot stay engaged anymore I'm so sorry. Props to the brilliant writing AND the translation — the plot was quite compelling, though I wished I could hit fast forward a few times — but I have to tap out around 50%.

I am so thankful that I was able to read this book and do continually thank Lydia Sandgren, Astra. Publishing House, and NetGalley for the advanced access. Everyone loves a cozy mystery, especially when there's some historical fiction thrown in the pot.

This is well-written (and well-translated) and an interesting if meandering story. However, it is extremely long and dense, and a tad pretentious. I eventually got to the point of skimming through the rest of it.

At 608 pages, it’s natural to assume that Collected Works will fail to engage its reader, perhaps succumbing to the comfort of repetition or losing momentum. Surprisingly, this is not the case. Unlike some more established writers’ recent hefty novels, Sandgren succeeds in transforming her detailed family saga and coming-of-age debut novel into something exceptional to savour and linger on.

Full review: https://westwordsreviews.wordpress.com/2023/02/17/collected-works-lydia-sandgren/

Not my cup of tea; a bit too long and wordy for the rather straightforward story this is telling. Don't think this would appeal to many readers of our collection, I'll pass on it.

Collected Works – Lydia Sandgren (translated from Swedish by Agnes Broomé)



My thanks to Astra Publishing House and @netgalley for sending me a copy of this in return for an honest review.



I’m sitting at my laptop, trying to write a review of a book I didn’t enjoy at all. How do I start? With a plot synopsis? Hard to do with a book that comes in at over 700 pages where it feels like nothing happens, but I’ll do my best…



Martin Berg is a publisher and failed writer, sitting on an unfinished novel, in the shadow of his two great loves: wife Cecilia, a famed historian and translator who left him 15 years ago with no news since; and best friend Gustav Becker, renowned painter who used Cecilia as his muse.



At the heart of this book could be the mystery around Cecilia – why did she leave? Where is she now? This is what drives her daughter Rakel to search for her after a chance encounter with a manuscript in her father’s publishing house.



Instead, what we got were character studies of people I found incredibly tedious, references to writers, philosophers and artists that went completely over my head, and a book that moved at a glacial pace through the shared childhoods of Martin and Gustav, their failures and hopes, an old-fashioned bildungsroman.



This was a best-seller in Sweden, and I’m honestly not sure why. It took me close to a month to read this, and I’ve come away with no impression of it whatsoever apart from the monumental effort it took to complete it. I just didn’t care about middle-class Swedes going to Paris looking for artistic inspiration – none of that appeals to me, at all, and it felt interminable throughout.



I see it’s getting good reviews, and this could be a situation like “Pond” where the voice just didn’t fit with me, but I did not enjoy my time with this book. I regret not DNFing it, if I’m being truthful.

𝑨 𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒅 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒅 𝒃𝒆𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒅 𝒕𝒂𝒌𝒆𝒏 𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒉𝒊𝒎. 𝑰𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒔𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒍 𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒌𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒃𝒗𝒊𝒐𝒖𝒔 𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒖𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒕𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇: 𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒈𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝒂 𝒏𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒍 𝒐𝒇 𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒐𝒘𝒏.

Martin Berg has entered a lull, his children are grown, his body is reminding him of the years that have passed, and loneliness is inhabiting every corner of his life. These things, he knows, are the ‘inevitabilities of life’ and yet, it doesn’t settle on him any easier. Reflecting on the past, he knows his young self would be shocked by the man looking back at him from the future. In his youth, he hungered for a bohemian life, and no one opened his world more than his best friend and aspiring artist, Gustav Becker. When Martin was playing at who he wanted to become, a talented writer, emulating Camus with a stylish the turn of a collar on his coat, no one encouraged him more than Gustav. His friend’s natural state oozed bohemia, it was through Gustav that he met people, entered places he would have otherwise dismissed. It was more than their shared love of bands and literature that made their friendship vital to Martin, his days were much more dull without his friend’s presence, as they were before Gustav entered his world. Gustav skated by with terrible grades while Martin was a stellar, top student, yet he seemed to know more, was obviously cultured. His family was interesting enough to provide fodder for artistic pursuits, unlike Martin’s own. Martin became more heroic with Gustav urging him to do things, like ‘going for it’ with Cecilia Wikner, the beautiful stranger he saw in a bar and finally met over the spines of books. It is a meeting of the minds. She will become his wife, mother of his children and a source of deep, abiding pain when she mysteriously disappears from their lives. She doesn’t return.

The Gothenburg Museum of Art is putting on a retrospective of Gustav’s work, bringing with it ghosts of the past, of Cecilia, her images. There was a time in Europe when the trio were together, and Gustav would snap polaroid pictures of Cissy to use as his model for paintings. It was also when Gustav’s fragility and troubles become apparent. It seems Martin misses so much about the people he loves. Years later, his daughter Rakel isn’t interested in Martin’s publishing company but in psychology. She has memories of her mother, objects stored in a suitcase that belonged to Cecilia. She has read her mother’s published books, coincidentally the first an essay about Amelia Earhart, who disappeared mysteriously herself. By the second books publication, her mother was gone. She longs for clarity, rather than ‘answers’ she believes the heart of knowing is in ‘questions’. What is it about the trio that made them thrive and then fall apart once Cissy vanished? Rakel thinks she has figured something out about her mother, and once she has a plan and knows what to do with the information, she and her younger brother Elis will act on it. It is surprising when Elis tells her he doesn’t even remember their mother, and why look for someone who chose to leave? He was only three when she took off. Yet, he will take his big sister’s lead, it’s what he has always done. It is important Martin knows nothing.

This novel is a landslide of time, going back into Martin’s youth with the birth of friendship, love, passion, career, family and the crumbling of his relationship with Cecilia and Gustav. We meet him in present state with his children and a reckoning of who he has become, with interviews that reflect on his path. It is about the things that make and break you and how each person can alter the trajectory of so many lives. Martin isn’t always likeable, but every character is genuine. I was more attuned to Rakel, who makes the story richer. I know next to nothing about Sweden now nor in the 80s, the period Martin comes of age but it was interesting. There were times I just wanted to yell, where the hell did she go and why? There are heavy, sad moments too. Rakel dealing with strangers all the time who are aware of her mother and think they have the right to judge, is a beautiful opening into exploring her own reasoning of her mother’s exit. It’s a burden, children often carry the consequences of their parents big choices. Gustav, a person who hums with life and wildly skillful artistry but struggles with himself, there is something haunting about his rise and fall. The period of time Martin is trying on his identity is perfect, often a character in a story is fully developed, it’s not true to life, most young adults emulate those they admire. Becoming takes time, as does honing one’s craft, expressed when Martin faces a blank page and cannot write, after being inspired by a book his mother gives him and decides to write his own novel. A good read, that explores many stages of Martin’s life.

Publication Date: January 31, 2023

Astra Publishing House

This novel is beautifully translated and is certainly compelling in its approach to the literary fiction/ mystery genres. The premise was so inviting and cozy that it was fitting for a winter read. Despite this, sitting at around 600 pages, the novel became a bit dense at times and tough to get through. I would still recommend it for anyone with a keen interest in an intersection between literary fiction and a good mystery.

This would certainly make for an interesting film or TV series.

3.5⭐

“Human memory is unreliable, that was one thing all subfields of psychology agreed on. An individual’s life story was a morass of fragmented recollections, other people’s narratives, unconscious incitements to direct one’s attention this or that way. Experiences and events were forgotten, invented, merged and warped.”

Almost fifteen years ago, thirty-three-year-old Cecilia Berg noted historian and translator left her family and was never heard from again. Her husband, publisher Martin Berg, co-owner of Berg & Andrén, which is about to celebrate 25 years in the publishing business, was left to raise their children, ten-year-old Rakel their daughter, and their son Elis who was only three at the time. Cecilia’s family – her parents and siblings and Martin’s best friend, renowned painter Gustav Becker have been stable fixtures in the life of the Bergs. Martin was once an aspiring novelist who, though having published short stories in the past has been unable to finish his novel. Family obligations, full-time engagement at his publishing house, writer’s block and lack of motivation have contributed to his being unable to follow through on any of his ideas.

In the present day, billboards advertising a retrospective of Gustav’s works scheduled to be held in an art museum featuring Cecilia, who was the subject of many of Gustav's famous paintings bring back memories for both Martin and Rakel. When Rakel is handed a novel that Martin’s publishing house has received for translation purposes, she discovers that one of the main characters is shockingly similar to her missing mother, motivating Rakel to go on a quest to find out what happened to her mother all those years ago. Why did she leave and where is she now?

Collected Works by Lydia Sandgren is a slow-paced, contemplative and immersive novel that touches upon themes of family, friendship, loyalty, art and literature. The larger part of the narrative presented from the perspectives of Martin and Rakel is uneven and nonlinear, jumping back and forth, often abruptly, between past and present. The tone varies between nostalgia and melancholy with lighter moments and shades of humor woven throughout the narrative. The coming-of-age narrative focusing on Gustav and Martin’s youth takes precedence over the element of mystery surrounding Cecilia’s disappearance. Martin’s friendship with Gustav, their dreams and convictions, disappointments and youthful indiscretions and exploits are explored in much detail as his Martin’s life before, with and after Cecilia. Cecilia’s disappearance and the mystery surrounding the same is presented to us in fragments, with much of the narrative going back and forth focusing on Gustav and Martin’s and later also Cecilia’s friendships with one another. The characters are complex and the author does an exceptional job of developing the characters, even the minor ones, and exploring the dynamics of human relationships. The discussions on literature, art, psychology and philosophy interspersed throughout the novel enrich the narrative. I should point out that the writing is detailed and descriptive. At over 600 pages this is a lengthy novel and a slow-paced one at that. I found certain parts a tad repetitive. It took a while for me to fully engage with the story and I didn't quite feel invested in any of the characters. While I appreciate the scope and depth of the novel and the elegant prose, I was less than satisfied with the abruptness of the ending and the resolution of the mystery left me with more questions than answers.

Many thanks to the author, Astra Publishing House and NetGalley for the eARC of this expansive novel. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I was unable to finish this book and thus will not be posting a full review. I enjoyed it but it was too long. There is so much detail and I was hoping the book would start going somewhere but it did seem to mostly be a recitation on thoughts. The translation is good

Despite the title, this is not a collection of works. At just shy of 600 pages, this translated debut novel spans decades and immerses the reader in the lives of Martin, his best friend Gustav, and his future wife Cecilia from their university/post-university years through today. When Martin, now a publisher, asks his daughter to review a translated work for possible publication, Rakel stumbles upon a thread that may lead her to answers about her mother's disappearance.

I took so many notes throughout my reading in an attempt to properly review this masterpiece but I know I will not be able to do it justice so I'm just going to ramble on for a bit. I loved tagging along with Martin and Gustav as they partied, studied, and discussed art. I loved peering into Cecilia's mind to explore her passion for psychological and philosophical theories, applications, and translations. I loved dropping in to have "a Paris year" in 1986, experience the art market in the late eighties, vacation at family summer homes, and live in cramped artists' apartments. I loved laughing at their obliviousness when they thought that children wouldn't change their lives. "He could rock his baby’s stroller with one foot while he read manuscripts" quickly morphs into "back then, life had fit around his writing, not the other way around."

As the carefree days of their youth become more distant, the characters accept the reality that "a person’s life is finite from the start, everything that happens does so at the expense of something else." One person accepts this change with what seems to be nothing more than a sigh, while the other two dig in their heels to take their own paths. While this novel is full of Swedish cultural references that might not be fully appreciated by American readers it is perfect for readers who love stories set at universities, coming-of-age stories, stories about art and artists, and stories about the all-consuming aspects of parenthood.

I also have to include this gem of an ode to reading:

"Reading gives you access to worlds other than your own. You can test out being an adulterous Russian noblewoman or an alcoholic mailman who frequents prostitutes. You can tag along on an outrageous road trip across North America. You can be anyone."

In this enormous novel, the central character, Cecilia, is off-stage almost the entire time, which is too bad, because her story--that of a woman who decides that she is not happy being a mother--is a very real and under-represented one. But the bulk of the story is about the friendships of Martin Berg, a would-be writer who can never get his act together enough to actually write anything to its completion. There's a lot of Martin faffing about while his best friend becomes an alcoholic but prolific and lauded painter. People smoke a ton, and use oral tobacco, which is just gross. People move through Martin's life, he gets a soft landing at a career through a friend, and generally annoyed this reader quite a lot. I could see why his wife left, and why his kids don't want to spend much time with him. Overall, the novel's got a nice unreliable-narrator vibe going on, but I can't really recommend it.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me access to this ahead of publication.
Unfortunately I wasn't a huge fan of this. I found it way too long for what it was trying to do and I found myself loosing interest quite quick even though the premise was very interesting and seemed right up my alley. Maybe it needs a more patient reader than me but I found the 600 pages unnecessary.

Martin Berg is preparing to celebrate 25 years in the publishing business. He has two grown children and remains friends with his childhood friend, now famous artist, Gustav. And it's been nearly 20 years since his wife walked out and left without a trace. The book follows Martin's development from wannabe writer to successful publisher, his relationships with Gustav and Cecelia, his frustrated attempts to write his own novel. The book also follows his daughter Rakal, a university student, who is annoyed with her father and wonders about her mother. It's a big baggy book that is part mystery, part bildunsroman, part portrait of the artist, and part buddy story. It moves between past and present, between the perspective of father and daughter. At 600 pages, it is too long! But it is also a compelling saga about youthful optimism, the making of art, and what we do and don't see about the people we love, Although this book is billed as "for fans of Knaussgard," it would be more accurate to say it's for lovers of Donna Tartt. 3.5 stars rounded up.

this was cozy and an all right read, but it didn’t grip me the way i wanted it to. the characters were mostly nicely fleshed out and i liked the way it became somewhat quirky at times, but i don’t have a whole lot more to say about it, honestly,

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle, from Astra Publishing House and #NetGalley. Thank you for the opportunity to preview and review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

Interesting, intriguing full of twists and turns.