Bestsellers

What is the bestseller for a size, what defines it, what are the Danes' favorite books about and what development story does it tell about the Danes and their relationship to topics such as love and war, gender and sexuality, family life, crimes, the national and the global, social relations, religion and big politics.

With Bestsellers, Lars Handesten takes the pulse of the phenomenon. It is a book about the fiction books that have sold the most in Denmark, with the emphasis on the period from around 1980 right up to the present day. As a starting point, the concept of bestseller, the function of popular literature and the nature and history of bestseller lists are explained. Next, an extensive series of the period's biggest bestsellers and steady sellers are introduced in diverse genres such as the romance novel, chicklit, the historical novel, the autofiction, the genealogical novel, the philosophical novel, the crime novel, the political thriller, the suspense novel, fantasy, magical realism, novels from exotic climes etc., as well as the few, but nevertheless occurring bestsellers in poetry, from the hymn book to Yahya Hassan.

Bestsellers tell about the readers' changing interests, self-perception, dreams and tastes, as can be read from the literature of the bestseller lists. In contrast to the usual national literary historiography, which has focused on the narrow and "fine" literature, this presentation disregards the traditional distinctions between fine and popular literature as well as Danish and translated literature, since it can all be found on the bestseller lists.

Bestsellers fill a significant gap in our knowledge and understanding of literary and cultural history, as the book makes visible the reading of the general public and its history in recent times.

"There are many (...) excellent points, and if you generally want to refresh years of reading and know what the books you didn't read are about, then Handesten's book - the first on the subject of Danish bestsellers - is both very useful and quite enjoyable”. Bo Bjørnvig in the review "Dansen om bestselleren", Weekendavisen