Gotland best
According to a new survey by Sifo (the Swedish market research company), in which over 1,000 Swedes ranked the best of Sweden’s 28 largest municipalities, Gotland is the absolute best. Gotland received a ranking of 4.16 out of the possible 5. Jonathan Wennö from Sifo told Göteborgs-Posten, that Gotland won because of its strong brand as a tourist destination. And tourism, employment, universities as well as people’s knowledge of the area were some of the factors that influenced the rating. The top five municipalities and their average ratings were: Gotland 4.16, Göteborg 3.88, Stockholm 3.71, Uppsala 3.67 and Halmstad 3.67.

2013 August Prize to Lena Andersson
The August Prize, or Augustpriset, is named after Swedish author August Strindberg (1849-1912), and is one of the most celebrated and prestigious literary prizes in Sweden. Founded by the Swedish Publishers’ Association in 1989, the intention was to institute an annual award for the best Swedish books of the year in order to increase public interest in Swedish contemporary literature. The August Prize is awarded in three categories: Best Swedish Fiction Book of the Year, Best Swedish Non-Fiction Book of the Year and Best Swedish Children’s Book of the Year. This year, the prize for Best Swedish Fiction Book of the Year went to Lena Andersson for her novel: “Egenmäktigt förfarande—en roman om kärlek” (“Arbitrary Conduct”). In her speech, Andersson thanked two unknown men who stole her computer, on which she had begun a novel during a longer trip, which meant she began working on the winning novel instead, even though it was painful. “It went against my instincts to get into these points of pain, and not to yield for the pain,” Andersson said at the award show. When asked what it is in her book that so many people can relate to, she said: “We all do a lot of things that never reaches daylight. We think, we suffer, we feel pain. People go through this, I suppose. Love and hopeless relations.” The prize for Best Swedish Non-Fiction Book of the Year went to Bea Uusma for “Expeditionen. Min kärlekshistoria," a book that examines engineer Andrée’s North Pole expedition. Ellen Karlsson and Eva Lindström are the authors who won the prize for Best Swedish Children’s Book of the Year with the book “Snöret, fågeln och jag.”