What do you think?
Small Comfort
From the successful child actor who has now turned into a failing thief; to an actor hired to give a speech at a stranger's wedding; to a couple feigning married bliss to keep their inheritance: Small Comfort is a brilliantly original examination of the value of people and money. How do financial structures, such as currency, relate to our own emotional landscapes? What does it really mean to be in debt to someone? And what do we lose when we supposedly win?
367 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 19, 2018
About the author
Ia Genberg
9 books235 followersIa Gabriella Genberg (born 5 November 1967) is a Swedish journalist and novelist.
Born in Stockholm, Sweden, she debuted as a writer in 2012 with the novel Söta fredag ("Sweet Friday"). Her fourth novel, Detaljerna ("The Details"), won the August Prize in 2022, the year of its publication. The English translation, by Kira Josefsson, was shortlisted for the 2024 International Booker Prize.
Author Picture: Sara Mac Key
Born in Stockholm, Sweden, she debuted as a writer in 2012 with the novel Söta fredag ("Sweet Friday"). Her fourth novel, Detaljerna ("The Details"), won the August Prize in 2022, the year of its publication. The English translation, by Kira Josefsson, was shortlisted for the 2024 International Booker Prize.
Author Picture: Sara Mac Key
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 188 reviews
June 23, 2026
Book 9/13 of the Longlist
Novel translated from Swedish by Kira Josefsson
3.5 rounded up
Small Comfort is a collection of 5 sort of connected short stories/novellas. The common theme is money and how they affect our behaviour and morals. I am not sure I understand the low rating of this book. Yes, some stories are better than the others, but I still think it is a strong collection. I particularly liked how the authors plays with form. One short story is an interview with a former child actor obsessed with money that he doesn’t have. Another, is a weeding speech which goes into an unexpected territory. The one that did not work for me was a scientific report on a Monopoly type game experiment. I still admired the concept and execution, it was just un-engaging.
So, I give it 4* stars for its inventiveness and the courage of the author to write something new. Also, I enjoyed reading 3 out of the 5 stories. A good choice for the BI longlist.
Other books read by the author:
The Details ****
Novel translated from Swedish by Kira Josefsson
3.5 rounded up
Small Comfort is a collection of 5 sort of connected short stories/novellas. The common theme is money and how they affect our behaviour and morals. I am not sure I understand the low rating of this book. Yes, some stories are better than the others, but I still think it is a strong collection. I particularly liked how the authors plays with form. One short story is an interview with a former child actor obsessed with money that he doesn’t have. Another, is a weeding speech which goes into an unexpected territory. The one that did not work for me was a scientific report on a Monopoly type game experiment. I still admired the concept and execution, it was just un-engaging.
So, I give it 4* stars for its inventiveness and the courage of the author to write something new. Also, I enjoyed reading 3 out of the 5 stories. A good choice for the BI longlist.
Other books read by the author:
The Details ****
March 22, 2026
a collection of 5 interconnected short stories about money and the role it plays in our lives and relationships. there’s just something about ia genberg’s writing (and josefsson’s translation) that really scratches my brain. i don’t think this will be for everyone but it was for me!
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April 14, 2026This book is teeming with so many ideas and perspectives about one thing: money. The root of all evil? A manmade concept? Something that divides us socially, politically, geographically, and in so many other ways? A bargaining chip? An anesthetic to daily life?
In 5 loosely connected short stories, Ia Genberg delivers powerful ideas in bursts of creative prose and unique story structures.
I was hooked from page one, and it really didn't let up at all. I'll save you the synopsis of each story, since there's only 5 of them and it's obviously more fun to discover them for yourself. I'll only curb expectations for this being an 'interconnected short story collection' and say that while that's true, don't expect some overarching plot or resolution across them. They truly are just 5 distinct stories that share a few facts/details to tie them together; though the thematic connections are where they really play off one another, more than plot or characters.
This is funnily enough the 2nd book as of late that heavily talks about the concept of money (the other being Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami). The security that it brings, both physically and psychologically, the advantages and disadvantages of it. It's a concept which we are in some ways always thinking about but also not really thinking about too deeply beyond what we need to survive (at least, that's how the majority of the world's population lives while others get rich off the backs of that majority and don't have to worry about money at all...). I'm sure in the coming decade we will only get more books about the subject, and I'm curious to keep reading them and to keep challenging my perspective.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and Genberg's writing (with another flawless translation by Josefsson!). Between this and The Details, Genberg is definitely an author I'll keep an eye on.
In 5 loosely connected short stories, Ia Genberg delivers powerful ideas in bursts of creative prose and unique story structures.
I was hooked from page one, and it really didn't let up at all. I'll save you the synopsis of each story, since there's only 5 of them and it's obviously more fun to discover them for yourself. I'll only curb expectations for this being an 'interconnected short story collection' and say that while that's true, don't expect some overarching plot or resolution across them. They truly are just 5 distinct stories that share a few facts/details to tie them together; though the thematic connections are where they really play off one another, more than plot or characters.
This is funnily enough the 2nd book as of late that heavily talks about the concept of money (the other being Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami). The security that it brings, both physically and psychologically, the advantages and disadvantages of it. It's a concept which we are in some ways always thinking about but also not really thinking about too deeply beyond what we need to survive (at least, that's how the majority of the world's population lives while others get rich off the backs of that majority and don't have to worry about money at all...). I'm sure in the coming decade we will only get more books about the subject, and I'm curious to keep reading them and to keep challenging my perspective.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and Genberg's writing (with another flawless translation by Josefsson!). Between this and The Details, Genberg is definitely an author I'll keep an eye on.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Longlisted for the 2026 International Booker Prize
Marriage: there’s always a winner and a loser, one who makes more withdrawals than deposits, one whose investments turn out to be wiser in the long term, who seems to constantly repay their debts right before the interest rate goes up.
Small Comfort is Kira Josefsson's translation of Klen tröst & fyra andra berättelser om pengar by Ia Genberg. The Details from the same translator/author was previously shortlisted for the 2024 edition of the International Booker.
The original full title of Small Comfort could be translated as Small Comfort and Four Other Stories About Money, and the book rather does what it says on the tin, or perhaps better what the signature of the chief cashier says on the bank note.
I’m sure you saw the briefcase on TV, stuffed with globally accepted currency, and maybe you were surprised by the shape of the bills: the cash, their physicality, their potential rustling. Cash and digital money might be the same, but in actuality they aren’t. One is traceable, the other is not–though the real difference is about something else. For instance, the fact that the words for ‘cash’ are more numerous in most languages than the words for ‘darling’, and that these two words activate the same area in the amygdala. Or that the effort a person expends on making money can be enhanced by the physical experience of money, e.g. holding it in one’s hand, or having one’s face being placed in the draught produced by riffling through a wad of notes. Looking at an account statement or a stock exchange chart doesn’t have the same effect: no glands are activated, no salivation occurs, no muscles contract. Cash, on the other hand, like a strong scent from one’s childhood, takes the fast lane to the human heart.
Although these are more 5 novellas than 5 short stories - and all 5 outstayed their welcome for me, although the different formats adopted does maintain the reader's interest for the overall project. And there are links between them - some clear, other more subtle, and I suspect some too subtle for my attention span.
Success Greger has a reporter (called Ia Genberg) interviewing a former child actor Greger Johnson who, years ago, appeared in a movie based on Astrid Lindgren's Emil i Lönneberga books - the story a recording of their interview. The reporter is interviewing various of the stars of the film for a tribute to the director, who has died, but Greger is more interested in both theorising on life and telling her how he impulsively stole a car recently, and the odd events that followed.
Penance is a letter from an anonymous source (perhaps Weidar himself?) discussing the disappearance, and assumed murder, of a man, Sebastian Weidar, working for a large bit shadowy pharma conglomerate, his job to dispense cash bribes to doctors and others.
The more digital the world becomes, the more important is the cash-based choreography that constituted the frame of Weidar’s work. If you believe it’s all zeroes and ones these days, well, then you’ve never seen the hand an underpaid scientist will place on a fat, unaddressed envelope during a bistro lunch after a few months of lapsed academic integrity.
But he disappeared/was killed when he lost a large suitcase of cash - the loss we realise being an accidental side-effect of Greger's impulsive act.
[As an aside, Weidar's boss Janzon has, for some reason, an intriguing and unexplained Korean connection - serving bulgogi wraps at dinner parties; obsessed with photos of Korean cheesecake; and with strong views on the chemically disastrous combination of that staple of Korean birthday cakes - Kiwis on cream]
The third story, Speech At A Wedding is, indeed a speech delivered at a wedding, but one written by an uninvited and absent party, and delivered by a hired actress (and later we realise hired also for a more sinister act), condeming the groom, a business man.
The fourth The Loser's Claustrophobia draws, as is acknowledged at the start of the book, heavily on the work of social psychologist Paul Piff, and experiments he performed observing participants in clearly rigged games of Monopoly. One player gets to roll two dice the other one; starts with more money and collects more when they pass go; and cannot Go to Jail - but Piff's experiments revealed that both the advantaged player, and, but to a lesser extent, the disadvantaged one tended to attribute the former's inevitable win to skill and willpower rather than an inbuild advantage.
And disadvantaged players who received mid-game coaching, were convinced they could now win, or indeed were pulling back into the game, despite all the evidence:
P: If I’d only pulled myself together better, I could have won. Or had a chance.
E: But you didn’t get any hotels, and you only had two houses.
P: Sure.
E: While your opponent bought, let’s see . . . Right, he had Fenchurch Street, the Angel, Islington, Whitechapel, Marlborough Street, Coventry Street, Oxford Street and Mayfair after just three rounds. You had completed only one round, and had bought–ah . . . right, Piccadilly.
P: Right.
E: And after five rounds he had hotels on Park Lane and Mayfair.
P: Wasn’t that when I bought Old Kent Road, though?
The story itself consists of notes on designing the experiments and observations of the results, as well as a side-story (whose significance escaped me) about one of the experimenters and his relationship with a woman he met in a bar. The experimenters also talk about a famous person Simmons, who is in a coma after a murder attempt, which may link to the previous story.
This was perhaps the most interesting story in terms of it's observations on money - except one can glean the information from the source via Paul Piff's TED talk.
The fifth, and title, story has a divorced couple enacting their annual 'play', at the wife's family's island summer home, designed to convince her mother than they are still married, so she doesn't disinherit them. The economically unsuccessful divorced husband works on scripts to dub English cartoons into Swedish (so that the Swedish words fit the character's mouth movements); plans plots for crime novels he doesn't actually write (the plot sketches included in the story); and works nights as a taxi driver to make ends meet (in which guise he appears in other stories, for example giving Weidar a lift).
Perhaps the weakest of the longlist for me, although a worthwhile read. 2.5 stars.
International Booker judges' citation
‘A separated couple are forced to revert to married life for an annual holiday in order to secure an inheritance. A researcher using Monopoly to study societal inequality discovers for herself how love corrupts. Money makes the world go round and Ia Genberg has a deep, clear-eyed vision of how. The dramatic distinctness of the five stories that make up Small Comfort speaks to the might of Genberg’s imaginative powers, while the intricate threads tying them together are testament to her subtleness as a thinker. It couldn’t work without Kira Josefsson’s staggeringly flexible translation, which also stands out for the naturalness of its dialogue and wonderfully rhythmic prose. This duo’s writing zings and smarts in all the right places as we see ourselves reflected in the characters, warts and all. Breathtakingly original, profound but with a delicious dose of irreverence.’
Marriage: there’s always a winner and a loser, one who makes more withdrawals than deposits, one whose investments turn out to be wiser in the long term, who seems to constantly repay their debts right before the interest rate goes up.
Small Comfort is Kira Josefsson's translation of Klen tröst & fyra andra berättelser om pengar by Ia Genberg. The Details from the same translator/author was previously shortlisted for the 2024 edition of the International Booker.
The original full title of Small Comfort could be translated as Small Comfort and Four Other Stories About Money, and the book rather does what it says on the tin, or perhaps better what the signature of the chief cashier says on the bank note.
I’m sure you saw the briefcase on TV, stuffed with globally accepted currency, and maybe you were surprised by the shape of the bills: the cash, their physicality, their potential rustling. Cash and digital money might be the same, but in actuality they aren’t. One is traceable, the other is not–though the real difference is about something else. For instance, the fact that the words for ‘cash’ are more numerous in most languages than the words for ‘darling’, and that these two words activate the same area in the amygdala. Or that the effort a person expends on making money can be enhanced by the physical experience of money, e.g. holding it in one’s hand, or having one’s face being placed in the draught produced by riffling through a wad of notes. Looking at an account statement or a stock exchange chart doesn’t have the same effect: no glands are activated, no salivation occurs, no muscles contract. Cash, on the other hand, like a strong scent from one’s childhood, takes the fast lane to the human heart.
Although these are more 5 novellas than 5 short stories - and all 5 outstayed their welcome for me, although the different formats adopted does maintain the reader's interest for the overall project. And there are links between them - some clear, other more subtle, and I suspect some too subtle for my attention span.
Success Greger has a reporter (called Ia Genberg) interviewing a former child actor Greger Johnson who, years ago, appeared in a movie based on Astrid Lindgren's Emil i Lönneberga books - the story a recording of their interview. The reporter is interviewing various of the stars of the film for a tribute to the director, who has died, but Greger is more interested in both theorising on life and telling her how he impulsively stole a car recently, and the odd events that followed.
Penance is a letter from an anonymous source (perhaps Weidar himself?) discussing the disappearance, and assumed murder, of a man, Sebastian Weidar, working for a large bit shadowy pharma conglomerate, his job to dispense cash bribes to doctors and others.
The more digital the world becomes, the more important is the cash-based choreography that constituted the frame of Weidar’s work. If you believe it’s all zeroes and ones these days, well, then you’ve never seen the hand an underpaid scientist will place on a fat, unaddressed envelope during a bistro lunch after a few months of lapsed academic integrity.
But he disappeared/was killed when he lost a large suitcase of cash - the loss we realise being an accidental side-effect of Greger's impulsive act.
[As an aside, Weidar's boss Janzon has, for some reason, an intriguing and unexplained Korean connection - serving bulgogi wraps at dinner parties; obsessed with photos of Korean cheesecake; and with strong views on the chemically disastrous combination of that staple of Korean birthday cakes - Kiwis on cream]
The third story, Speech At A Wedding is, indeed a speech delivered at a wedding, but one written by an uninvited and absent party, and delivered by a hired actress (and later we realise hired also for a more sinister act), condeming the groom, a business man.
The fourth The Loser's Claustrophobia draws, as is acknowledged at the start of the book, heavily on the work of social psychologist Paul Piff, and experiments he performed observing participants in clearly rigged games of Monopoly. One player gets to roll two dice the other one; starts with more money and collects more when they pass go; and cannot Go to Jail - but Piff's experiments revealed that both the advantaged player, and, but to a lesser extent, the disadvantaged one tended to attribute the former's inevitable win to skill and willpower rather than an inbuild advantage.
And disadvantaged players who received mid-game coaching, were convinced they could now win, or indeed were pulling back into the game, despite all the evidence:
P: If I’d only pulled myself together better, I could have won. Or had a chance.
E: But you didn’t get any hotels, and you only had two houses.
P: Sure.
E: While your opponent bought, let’s see . . . Right, he had Fenchurch Street, the Angel, Islington, Whitechapel, Marlborough Street, Coventry Street, Oxford Street and Mayfair after just three rounds. You had completed only one round, and had bought–ah . . . right, Piccadilly.
P: Right.
E: And after five rounds he had hotels on Park Lane and Mayfair.
P: Wasn’t that when I bought Old Kent Road, though?
The story itself consists of notes on designing the experiments and observations of the results, as well as a side-story (whose significance escaped me) about one of the experimenters and his relationship with a woman he met in a bar. The experimenters also talk about a famous person Simmons, who is in a coma after a murder attempt, which may link to the previous story.
This was perhaps the most interesting story in terms of it's observations on money - except one can glean the information from the source via Paul Piff's TED talk.
The fifth, and title, story has a divorced couple enacting their annual 'play', at the wife's family's island summer home, designed to convince her mother than they are still married, so she doesn't disinherit them. The economically unsuccessful divorced husband works on scripts to dub English cartoons into Swedish (so that the Swedish words fit the character's mouth movements); plans plots for crime novels he doesn't actually write (the plot sketches included in the story); and works nights as a taxi driver to make ends meet (in which guise he appears in other stories, for example giving Weidar a lift).
Perhaps the weakest of the longlist for me, although a worthwhile read. 2.5 stars.
International Booker judges' citation
‘A separated couple are forced to revert to married life for an annual holiday in order to secure an inheritance. A researcher using Monopoly to study societal inequality discovers for herself how love corrupts. Money makes the world go round and Ia Genberg has a deep, clear-eyed vision of how. The dramatic distinctness of the five stories that make up Small Comfort speaks to the might of Genberg’s imaginative powers, while the intricate threads tying them together are testament to her subtleness as a thinker. It couldn’t work without Kira Josefsson’s staggeringly flexible translation, which also stands out for the naturalness of its dialogue and wonderfully rhythmic prose. This duo’s writing zings and smarts in all the right places as we see ourselves reflected in the characters, warts and all. Breathtakingly original, profound but with a delicious dose of irreverence.’
March 1, 2026
3.5. In five connected short stories, Genberg looks at the ways in which money consciously or unconsciously affects our behavior, our view of the world around us, and the relationships we have with other people.
Playing with form throughout, these stories take the shape of an interview between Genberg herself and a failed child star fixated on wealth and his lack of it, of a wedding speech delivered by proxy through an actress that builds to a dramatic conclusion, of a research log for a PhD student studying the effects of temporary wealth by modifying the rules of Monopoly.
Some of these stories worked better than others, though I often felt the way the theme "money makes people act in strange ways" was explored was a bit on the nose, simplistic, and just rather obvious? Nothing that anybody does, says, or thinks in these stories will surprise anyone and I think that's one of the reasons this wasn't a standout read for me. It's easy to look at the world around us and see even more extreme examples of the ways in which people do insane or unethical things for money and power and so this exploration felt a bit tame and self-evident. Perhaps I wanted it to probe deeper into the psychological and philosophical theories around the topic.
All descriptions say this book is about money, but I found it was equally about truth and the ways in which it is often irrelevant in the face of stronger forces. This goes hand in hand with the theme of money and its influence, but this angle interested me more with its relevance to the world around us and the ways in which the truth is denied or easily evaded by those with power and wealth.
Genberg's writing (as seen through Josefsson's translation) is stylistically straightforward and didn't capture me in the same was that it did in The Details.
A bit uninspiring for my tastes, but not one I regret reading.
Playing with form throughout, these stories take the shape of an interview between Genberg herself and a failed child star fixated on wealth and his lack of it, of a wedding speech delivered by proxy through an actress that builds to a dramatic conclusion, of a research log for a PhD student studying the effects of temporary wealth by modifying the rules of Monopoly.
Some of these stories worked better than others, though I often felt the way the theme "money makes people act in strange ways" was explored was a bit on the nose, simplistic, and just rather obvious? Nothing that anybody does, says, or thinks in these stories will surprise anyone and I think that's one of the reasons this wasn't a standout read for me. It's easy to look at the world around us and see even more extreme examples of the ways in which people do insane or unethical things for money and power and so this exploration felt a bit tame and self-evident. Perhaps I wanted it to probe deeper into the psychological and philosophical theories around the topic.
All descriptions say this book is about money, but I found it was equally about truth and the ways in which it is often irrelevant in the face of stronger forces. This goes hand in hand with the theme of money and its influence, but this angle interested me more with its relevance to the world around us and the ways in which the truth is denied or easily evaded by those with power and wealth.
Genberg's writing (as seen through Josefsson's translation) is stylistically straightforward and didn't capture me in the same was that it did in The Details.
A bit uninspiring for my tastes, but not one I regret reading.
May 14, 2026
Smart, original and very well translated. I enjoyed these (very loosely interconnected and not very short) stories that all have to do with money and status, how it permeates every aspect of life and how it makes us play roles and act differently.
I was a big fan of The Details and its emotional power. But this is very different, more intellectual and sarcastic. There is great dialogue too!
I was hoping throughout the book that everything would come together at the end, and that the few links between the different parts would be nicely tied together and culminate in an all-explaining finale, but unfortunately it didn't....
I was a big fan of The Details and its emotional power. But this is very different, more intellectual and sarcastic. There is great dialogue too!
I was hoping throughout the book that everything would come together at the end, and that the few links between the different parts would be nicely tied together and culminate in an all-explaining finale, but unfortunately it didn't....
April 13, 2026
Ia Genberg’s Small Comfort (translated by Kira Josefsson) is my 11th novel off this year’s International Booker Longlist.
The book consists of 5 short stories - all are connected through reoccurring characters and thematically.
Through these 5 stories Genberg expands on themes such as the role of money in a society that is going through a financial crises. As a result she also examines ethics and morals surrounding finance.
Stylistically it’s clever and varied: the first story is an interview between a journalist with the author’s same name and a failing former child actor. The other a scientific report on a larger than life game of monopoly- the last story is about an author trying to think of the ideal crime novel plot.
Small Comfort is different and innovative- for me two of the stories didn’t hit that well but it’s definitely pushing boundaries and worth a read.
The book consists of 5 short stories - all are connected through reoccurring characters and thematically.
Through these 5 stories Genberg expands on themes such as the role of money in a society that is going through a financial crises. As a result she also examines ethics and morals surrounding finance.
Stylistically it’s clever and varied: the first story is an interview between a journalist with the author’s same name and a failing former child actor. The other a scientific report on a larger than life game of monopoly- the last story is about an author trying to think of the ideal crime novel plot.
Small Comfort is different and innovative- for me two of the stories didn’t hit that well but it’s definitely pushing boundaries and worth a read.
March 28, 2026
Was torn between 3 and 4 stars but going with the latter as this is a super unique short story collection. All of the stories revolve around money and the way normal people can be corrupted by it. I loved the first story and the last two the best out of the whole lot. I really like short story collections which experiment with form and keep you interested which this one does very well. I’d recommend this as it really captivated me.
March 19, 2026
Interesting (and supposedly interlinked?) stories about money and wealth that make you reflect on our modern world. Some stories I really liked, others I admired more than I enjoyed reading them. Like in Genberg's The Details the character descriptions are beautifully detailed and realistic again. A fascinating read.
Thank you Headline and Netgalley UK for the ARC.
Thank you Headline and Netgalley UK for the ARC.
May 16, 2026
I really enjoyed this. Five short stories, all in different styles (eg one is an interview, another involves a social experiment), all concerned with money, class, differences within relationships over money and class, greed, corruption, crime, appearances and society in general. Very well done. A great read.
March 12, 2026
Thank you NetGalley and Headline for providing me a copy of this book. Small Comfort is longlisted for the International Booker Prize for 2026, and this is my first completed book from the prize. I found this just okay. Small Comfort is a collection of five short stories, two of them are on the longer side and three are on the shorter side. We follow different stories and characters, all in different financial situations.
Out of the five short stories, I only really enjoyed one story, and that was the first long one, where we follow the author doing an interview in prison with an actor who has turned into a thief. They had very nice dynamic and good banter. As for the other stories, I didn't much get them and didn't take out anything out of them. Although they all were beautifully written. The writing style is the strong side of this book. I am hoping that I will enjoy the other books on the longlist more than this one.
Out of the five short stories, I only really enjoyed one story, and that was the first long one, where we follow the author doing an interview in prison with an actor who has turned into a thief. They had very nice dynamic and good banter. As for the other stories, I didn't much get them and didn't take out anything out of them. Although they all were beautifully written. The writing style is the strong side of this book. I am hoping that I will enjoy the other books on the longlist more than this one.
March 6, 2026
Small Comfort is an intricately built and wickedly humorous collection of five interconnected stories about money.
From an interview with a child-star-turned-thief to the mysterious death of an employee at a drug manufacturer – or the couple feigning marital bliss to keep their inheritance, Ia Genberg carefully unravels the value we place on both money and people.
What does it really mean to be in debt to someone? How does our financial worth permeate the ways we think and feel? And what do we lose when we supposedly win?
An original and thought-provoking short-story collection, Small Comfort skewers its characters, slyly implicating the reader along the way. It’s published in the UK by Wildfire. This extract is taken from the opening of the book.
From an interview with a child-star-turned-thief to the mysterious death of an employee at a drug manufacturer – or the couple feigning marital bliss to keep their inheritance, Ia Genberg carefully unravels the value we place on both money and people.
What does it really mean to be in debt to someone? How does our financial worth permeate the ways we think and feel? And what do we lose when we supposedly win?
An original and thought-provoking short-story collection, Small Comfort skewers its characters, slyly implicating the reader along the way. It’s published in the UK by Wildfire. This extract is taken from the opening of the book.
March 10, 2026
Begynte bra, men datt fort av. Kvifor denne er på den internasjonale Booker langliste er eit mysterium.
July 4, 2026
“Small Comfort” is a collection of five semi-interconnected stories/novellas that all center around explorations of wealth, financial status, and power. From an experiment conducted via rounds of rigged Monopoly games to a couple feigning their marriage every summer in order to maintain their future inheritance, “Small Comfort” prompts the reader to reflect on current economic systems, who benefits from them, and who is willing to acknowledge the injustice of these systems. Through various formats, such as interview transcriptions, letter/email correspondence, and lab reports, the construction of these stories adds an interesting layer of texture to these class examinations.
Despite the unique set-up of a lot of these stories and the relevant messaging behind them, I still found myself overall a bit underwhelmed with this collection as a whole. I think almost all of these stories were a bit long for what they intended to accomplish; and despite liking each story for the most part, I felt disengaged by the end of each one. Within each story, I found that some of the talking points became redundant due to being slightly too long. I’d say that my favorite story was “The Loser’s Claustrophobia” which follows the Monopoly experiment: one player is very obviously given the upper hand when playing (collecting more money when passing “Go,” rolling with both dice while their opponent gets a singular die, etc.), and how the winner views themself as being superior, more intelligent, and luckier than their opponent, despite the clear obstacles the loser faced which the winner did not. This clear metaphor for those with accessibility and proximity to wealth was fascinating, and the mix of prose and lab-report writing style made this a unique story. However, it unfortunately overstayed its welcome by about 10-20 pages, making some of the talking points, as I mentioned, redundant and repetitive.
I do think that these stories do have a lot to say on the themes of capitalism and social class, and these themes are tackled in an interesting way, so I don’t necessarily dissuade anyone from picking this collection up. If you’re open to a unique blend of style and structure in your narratives, and enjoy more of a literary approach to capitalistic commentary, I think you could enjoy these. But ultimately, I found my time with this collection to be a bit mediocre. Not bad by any means, but not extraordinary either.
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperVia for the advance eARC in exchange for an honest review!
Despite the unique set-up of a lot of these stories and the relevant messaging behind them, I still found myself overall a bit underwhelmed with this collection as a whole. I think almost all of these stories were a bit long for what they intended to accomplish; and despite liking each story for the most part, I felt disengaged by the end of each one. Within each story, I found that some of the talking points became redundant due to being slightly too long. I’d say that my favorite story was “The Loser’s Claustrophobia” which follows the Monopoly experiment: one player is very obviously given the upper hand when playing (collecting more money when passing “Go,” rolling with both dice while their opponent gets a singular die, etc.), and how the winner views themself as being superior, more intelligent, and luckier than their opponent, despite the clear obstacles the loser faced which the winner did not. This clear metaphor for those with accessibility and proximity to wealth was fascinating, and the mix of prose and lab-report writing style made this a unique story. However, it unfortunately overstayed its welcome by about 10-20 pages, making some of the talking points, as I mentioned, redundant and repetitive.
I do think that these stories do have a lot to say on the themes of capitalism and social class, and these themes are tackled in an interesting way, so I don’t necessarily dissuade anyone from picking this collection up. If you’re open to a unique blend of style and structure in your narratives, and enjoy more of a literary approach to capitalistic commentary, I think you could enjoy these. But ultimately, I found my time with this collection to be a bit mediocre. Not bad by any means, but not extraordinary either.
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperVia for the advance eARC in exchange for an honest review!
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August 17, 2026DNF @ pg 126
It’s still the furthest I made it into any 2026 international booker longlisted books.
Give me the 2025 long list back please, this years’ was a disaster 😭
It’s still the furthest I made it into any 2026 international booker longlisted books.
Give me the 2025 long list back please, this years’ was a disaster 😭
July 30, 2026
Ia Genberg skriver rakt och kul, rappt och roligt i fem noveller som på ett eller annat vis handlar om pengar. Hon tecknar spännande personporträtt och hittar hela tiden nya sätt att engagera mig som läsare.
September 3, 2026
Jag läste "Detaljerna" för två år sedan och tyckte om den. Nu har jag alltså läst "Klen tröst" som har varit nominerad till Bookerpriset, men den här boken var betydligt svårare att förstå, tycker jag. En bok om pengar, om olika människors olika inställningar till pengar, om allt som har med pengar att göra.
May 11, 2026
Interesting set of stories
March 12, 2026
Considered and funny when she’s in a playful mood. New aspiration is to be a rich woman’s concubine
February 20, 2025
Älskar Ia Genbergs skärpa och intellekt! Efter del 3 "Tal vid bröllop" var jag säker på att det skulle bli en 4/5 stjärnor i rating, men del 4 var så pass seg att ta sig igenom att mitt slutbetyg fick bli lägre. Jag gillade del 5 "Klen tröst", men avslutet var inte helt tillfredställande.
July 22, 2026
3,5 ⭐️
Not every story was a hit, but they were all thematically interesting and I love Genberg’s writing style (beautifully translated by Josefsson)!
"What a tiny bit of success, so minuscule that it was too small to be anything but itself."
"Lovers meet or walk side by side during a brief, interest-free forever, but sooner or later they’ll find themselves at either side of the negotiating table. A shared currency emerges in the wake of the first gaze, and love’s generosity, this primary foundation of the world, slowly turns into a good for sale."
Not every story was a hit, but they were all thematically interesting and I love Genberg’s writing style (beautifully translated by Josefsson)!
"What a tiny bit of success, so minuscule that it was too small to be anything but itself."
"Lovers meet or walk side by side during a brief, interest-free forever, but sooner or later they’ll find themselves at either side of the negotiating table. A shared currency emerges in the wake of the first gaze, and love’s generosity, this primary foundation of the world, slowly turns into a good for sale."
April 26, 2026
Love Ia Genberg and love interconnected short stories, but somehow Small Comfort dragged on for me and I couldn’t get to the end of it. I just got incredibly bored. Not sure if it was the topic or the slow pace but I’m happy to let this one go now. Still appreciate some of the take away I got from these first 2,5 chapters I made it through.
March 22, 2026
International Booker Prize 2026 - 10/13
3.5/5
3.5/5
May 18, 2026
The last part is hilarious. But I would have appreciated a bit more cohesiveness between the parts, not just playing with the form.
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July 20, 20263,5*
June 6, 2026
**(*)
Never really got into this one, despite the different approaches... I guess the theme didn't speak loud enough to me to actually catch me...
Never really got into this one, despite the different approaches... I guess the theme didn't speak loud enough to me to actually catch me...
March 19, 2026
Favourite so far on the Booker longlist.
June 23, 2026
Gillade den om Monopol men annars ganska tråkig
March 22, 2026
IBPL 7.5
Clever series of lightly interlinked stories on the theme of money and the corroding influence it can have over people’s behaviours. Written in very different styles, I found the last of the book which was the most straightforward in style worked best for me. Overall thought provoking stuff if a little heavy handed in its messaging and at times rather over bearing stylistically
Clever series of lightly interlinked stories on the theme of money and the corroding influence it can have over people’s behaviours. Written in very different styles, I found the last of the book which was the most straightforward in style worked best for me. Overall thought provoking stuff if a little heavy handed in its messaging and at times rather over bearing stylistically
July 11, 2026
Älskar älskar älskar hur Ia skriver!😍 Spännande att novellerna även var skrivna på olika sätt, första är exempelvis en transkriberad intervju, andra är ett mejl, och fjärde är en studie osv! Läs! (Och läs hennes bok detaljerna!!!🔥)
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