Collected Works: A Novel

Reviews / Votes

Sexy Swedish novels are having a moment and arguably it began with Lydia Sandgren . . . a sensation . . . warm, funny and absorbing * The Times * Meet Sweden's Sally Rooney . . . a love-triangle, arty chit-chat, and lots of snow and sex . . . Sandgren strikes a nice balance between comedy and coming of age . . . Gorgeous and heightened and full of glittering, icy people * The Times * A wry bestseller that reads like the effortlessly chic European cousin of Fleishman is in Trouble . . . Part bildungsroman, part psychological mystery and part family saga . . . embraces the mess, misunderstandings and inscrutabilities that constitute real people living real lives * Telegraph * Utterly gripping... like the films of Richard Linklater transmuted to the page... a magnificent doorstop of a novel * Guardian * A witty, toothy, family saga... a confidently ambitious work that holds art, literature and philosophy close to its heart... an assured, bittersweet novel that, like youth, seems to have it all * Financial Times * A wide-ranging exploration of family and friends, art and ambition that more than lives up to the hype * Marie-Claire, Best New Books of 2023 * Poised at the intersection of life and art, reality and imagination, this novel blends the thrill of mystery with the curiosity and depth of philosophical inquiry * New Yorker * Eminently readable and engrossing * Spectator * A remarkable, addictive and quietly subversive work that... will have you demanding even more time with its characters * Business Post * A real knickerbocker glory of a novel: funny, philosophical, poignant, humane and beautifully written. It also manages to out-Franzen Jonathan Franzen and is addictive as any box-set. Those 700+ pages? They simply flew by * The Cracked Magazine * [An] epic literary novel... ambitious, assured... one of the most meticulously built works of fiction I've read in a long time... Will Collected Works help to restore the literary tradition of the long novel? Very possibly. * The New European * An addictive read, which reveals, teases and conceals superbly, and which, like all the best big books, leaves the finishing reader bereft * The Arts Desk * Unfolding over more than 700 beautifully written pages, this is a slow-burn, intriguing debut, shot through with gentle wit, clear-eyed perception and enough booze to give you a hangover * Saga Magazine, Book of the Month * Thrilling, brilliant and immense in the best possible way. Sandgren is a master storyteller, and I feel utterly bereft to have left the world of her absorbing characters. In a time of grim insularity, this is an uncompromisingly European novel, teeming with ideas and digressions on literature, art, history and love. -- Francesca Reece, author of 'Voyeur' Sandgren's epic narrative following a trio of Gothenburg friends from their student days in the late 1970s to the present is sweeping, ambitious, elegant and deeply evocative, all wrapped up in the missing person mystery that provides its narrative drive. Delightful * The New European's Books of the Year * Compelling, tense and moving - I loved this smart and subtle exploration of modern motherhood and womanhood -- Daisy Buchanan, author of 'Insatiable' [A] sweeping and complex drama of family, art, and sacrifice . . . Readers will be captivated * Publishers Weekly, Starred Review * A richly evocative work from a major new talent * Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review * Sandgren hooks the reader with an absorbing, multilayered plot that shifts between past and present, building slowly towards the emotional and narrative mystery at its heart * Booklist * This is a big, compelling family drama that's also a mystery, and also a treatise on art and artmaking and friendship and getting older, and it will suck you in and refuse to let go * LitHub * The most convincing work of literary fiction I've read in years: one part family saga, one part buddy comedy, one part mystery, one part bildungsroman, and one part philosophical inquiry into the nature of art, the whole filled with unforgettable characters, wry humor, and knock-down gorgeous sentences, positively vibrating with intelligence and style. People often write, with varying degrees of accuracy, that new books feel destined to become classics, but Collected Works feels like it already is one-and you, lucky reader, have stumbled upon it -- Emily Temple The mystery at the heart of the story adds urgency to this warm, engaging, and funny novel about the inebriation of youth and the sobriety of middle age; about lives shaped by art and ideas; about our human flaws and joys. Collected Works is a thoroughly enjoyable book -- Ayseguel Savas, author of 'White on White' The hottest debut of the year! If Klas OEstergren and Donna Tartt had had a love child, who grew up in Gothenburg and became an author, well, there you have Lydia Sandgren * Akademibokhandeln * A masterpiece, just as bold as any Donna Tartt novel, but at the same time calm and precise... Everything is captured. Tender, and terribly convincing * Expressen * Lydia Sandgren has written this year's most talked about - perhaps the millennium's most talked about - debut * Dagens Nyheter * Neat as in a perfectly composed pop song - catchy, bombastic, irresistable...What's left to say, therefore, is just that we hope that it doesn't take another ten years for Sandgren to write her next book * Weekendavisen (Denmark) * Lydia Sandgren is a debut author, but she writes this novel as if she's done nothing else for decades * Svenska Dagbladet * It makes me ecstatic that literature can be this too: a doorstopper of narrative joy, cultivation and linguistic delight * Boras Tidning * An exceptional debut... Collected Works demonstrates the richness and power of literature * Aftonbladet * In Lydia Sandgren's in many ways magnificent novel, the surroundings are vividly and lucidly portrayed... Collected Works is a serious and touching, and at the same time entertaining novel * Goeteborgs-Posten * I could hardly put the novel down... [Sandgren] turns the reading experience into a puzzle where new pieces constantly fall into place. Collected Works is one of the best books I've read in a long time * Upsala Nya Tidning * A gorgeously enticing novel - extensive and rich, slightly entwined and secretive, the story instantly grabs your attention and refuses to let go of you with a fabulous confidence [...]. The fact that it is - to top it all off - question of a debut novel, unquestionably turns Collected Works by Lydia Sandgren into a literary sensation * Hela Haelsningland *