"The main character of this novel is an adult man who lives with his mother, and who fancies himself too intelligent to participate in mainstream society or to hold down a normal job. Don’t we all have relatives like this? Well, I do!"

"In fourteenth-century Japan, amid a civil war, a mother and daughter trap and kill soldiers, steal their possessions, and trade them for food. Then it gets weird. Hikaru Hayashi’s sparse soundtrack is all taiko drums, horn blasts, and guttural yelling. Perfect."

"My mother wrote this memoir about her childhood, her bohemian and Beatnik friends, and her early love affair with Jack Kerouac. She was with him when On the Road came out, and witnessed how his sudden rise to prominence hastened his dissolution."

"If you ask me, Jacobsen is Scandinavia’s best now living novelist. “Child Wonder” is a gripping tale about a boy’s upbringing in Oslo with his single mother. If you read any one of Jacobsen’s novels you’ll become a member of his fan club."