Better emails begin with better judgment.

Hello — I'm Maren, and I run Solberg Books.

You've signed up for my newsletter, so here's what that means: about once a month, I'll send you three or four book recommendations.^{note 1} Translated literary fiction, mostly — the kind of books that stay with you after you've finished them.

I don't send promotions or discount codes.^{note 2} I don't have a content calendar. I read, and when I find something worth telling you about, I write about it.

The next newsletter goes out in the first week of February. In the meantime, here's one book I've been recommending to everyone who walks into the shop:

Georgi Gospodinov, "Time Shelter"^{note 3} — a novel about a clinic that recreates the past for people who can't bear the present. Funny, melancholy, and completely original. It won the International Booker in 2023 and it's one of the best things I've read in years.

If you ever want to reply to one of these emails, I read every one.^{note 4}

Starting March 1st, my commission prices are increasing. Here are the new rates:

The main reason is material and workshop time. My recent walnut orders have cost more than those I bought for earlier commissions,^{note 3} and I have been underestimating the hours needed for larger pieces. I have kept my prices unchanged for as long as I can, but I need to price the work accurately rather than rush the joinery.

If you've been considering a commission, any piece quoted before March 1st will be honoured at the current price,^{note 4} provided I receive the deposit within 30 days of the quote. If you already have an active quote, it's still valid — nothing changes for you until the work is complete and delivered.

Reply to this email or call the workshop if you have questions. I answer both.

I want to tell you about a book that changed something practical for me — not my outlook on life, but how I actually run the shop.^{note 1}

The book is Yoko Ogawa's "The Memory Police." It's a novel about an island where things disappear — birds, roses, photographs — and the people who forget they ever existed. It's quiet and strange and devastating.

I read it in 2021, when I was trying to figure out how many translated titles to carry versus the bestsellers that pay the rent. The conventional wisdom is: stock what sells. Fill the front tables with what people are already looking for.

Ogawa's book made me think about what happens when things disappear from a shop because no one was looking for them yet. A novel from a Croatian author that no one's heard of doesn't sell itself. But if I don't shelve it, nobody encounters it at all. It just vanishes — not dramatically, the way things disappear in the novel, but functionally. It ceases to exist for my customers.

So I changed my ordering. I kept the bestseller table, but I started a shelf near the till — "Books You Haven't Heard Of" — where I put one translated title a week with a handwritten card explaining why I chose it.^{note 2} It is a small change, but it gives those books a chance to be noticed before anyone knows to ask for them.

Ogawa didn't write a business book. But she wrote something that made me see my own decisions differently, and that's what the best books do.^{note 3}