Mikael Jalving – Absolut Sverige (2011)

When it seems that the Norwegian multiculturalism debate is stuck in an unproductive track, flirting nervously with a reality we fear does not respect our ideals, trying to see how few concessions to it we can get away with accepting, I do as the sport fans do, and take comfort in knowing that at least we’re better off than the Swedes.

Recommended: Yes.

George Sutherland – Twentieth Century Inventions: A Forecast (1901)

You do know that all predictions are worthless, right?  I see you nodding, and yet afterwards you go off and predict stuff.  Ah well.  Behold George Sutherland, ye haughty, and despair.

Recommended: Some of it, while other parts are too technical. The chapters on road and rail and warfare alone should suffice to prove that you’re being an idiot by even trying to forecast the future.  (Again I see you nodding, and then you think “well, he doesn’t mean the kind of predictions I make”.  But I do.  I do.)

Jo Benkow – Fra synagogen til Løvebakken (1985)

An account of Benkow’s life in the Norwegian Jewish community before and after the Holocaust.

Recommended: Weakly, for its perspective, not for its writing.