The Classics Club Spin landed on number 18 , the spot in my list reserved for the Norwegian classic The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas.

Now if I were an organised reader I would have made a note of how I came to discover this book. I might have found it as the result of a general search for classics from parts of the world other than the UK and the USA. Or I might have seen a review by another blogger (if that’s you, please let me know.)

The Birds is about about a lonely man who lives in a town where nobody can understand him.  Neighbours, and even his sister with whom he lives, look down on him and label him “Simple Simon.” In his isolation his only source of joy comes from the lake he sees every day and the birds that fly over his house.

The novel, published in 1957, was one of Vesaas’ most important works in a long career as a poet and novelist. According to a biography on Wikipedia, he was considered to be one of Norway’s greatest writers of the twentieth century. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature on 57 occasions—once in 1946, and then every year between 1950 and 1970, often receiving multiple nominations per year.

And yet, an article in The National Book Review in 2016 indicates that the book has remained largely unknown outside of Norway.

I’m looking forward to discovering what makes this book special. The Classics Club challenge is to read it by 4th October 2026.