What's this hubbub about a bokklubb?
№ 02
Hej! välkommen 📘⭐️
Only some people1 reading this newsletter might know me, so I will briefly introduce myself. My name is Sara(h), and I moved to Gothenburg in the summer of 2021. I am a graphic designer and an illustrator. I am still enrolled in SFI language classes and still have much to learn!
I have been considering starting a book club for two years now. Every few months, I would come up with a different theme/ focus.
- Design writing
- On artistic practice
- Linguistics
These thoughts about starting a book club materialized from reading something so cool and exciting that it was all I wanted to talk about and discuss. Fast forward to March 2023 - I decided to go for it. I have started detailing the narratives of different picturebooks in line with my current research. Some of these picturebooks are in Swedish - a plus point was that they have been helping me improve my language skills. Having a spreadsheet of picturebooks became a resource for the book club.
Nytt Chapter Bokklubb is for Swedish language learners and native/ fluent speakers who like picturebooks. We will discuss stories and challenge ourselves using a mixture of Swedish and English.
I plan to schedule the meetings on a monthly basis - every 1st Sunday of the month; the first meeting is on June 4th, and you can register by emailing nyttchapter@gmail.com
🏷 The name
I wanted to poke fun at how my Swedish is not good enough to read a full-on chapter (kapitel) book! I also wanted to challenge myself to talk and discuss things I am passionate about. So the name New Chapter turned into Nytt Chapter.
From SAOL2
ny adjektiv ~tt ~a
en helt ny bil; senaste nytt; en ny allvarlig olycka; på nytt en gång till.
en ny + substantiv
ett nytt + substantiv
den/det/de nya + substantiv
Nytt = New in Swedish! It sounds like *neat*
It was like saying: this is a neat chapter of this year! I learned that book clubs here are actually called bokcirkel. But I wanted to keep it approachable, especially for those still trying to pick up Swedish. It could come across as an alternative spelling of book club.
📖 What are we reading?
For our first meeting, we are discussing Sovdags för Lydia by author Moa-Lina Croall and illustrator Klara Persson. It was published in 2014 by Alfabeta. The ISBN number is 978-91-501-1637-3
You are welcome to join whether you read the book or not. I will have a copy of the book during the meeting that you can flip through.
💌