Long-listed for the Booker Prize. Short-listed as possibly the most tedious, banal, pretentious load of tripe I've ever had the misfortune to fall asleep over. (Book group. Goes without saying.) The Guardian reviewer - surprisingly - sums it up well. If only there could be a warning sticker on anything produced by graduates/teachers of creative writing programmes!

I never imagined I could be so engrossed in a novel, translated from the Norwegian, about one small family scratching out a living on a tiny island where nothing much happens except weather. But the seasons pass and life happens and change follows and even on an island there are dreams and disappointments. It is beautifully written - in language as spare as the landscape - and beautifully translated by two co-translators. (I wonder how they managed that so seamlessly?) This is the first book of a quartet and I've already ordered the next one.