The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven by Nathaniel Ian Miller is for readers looking to escape summer’s heat by diving into the icy environs of the Arctic Sea. In 1916, 32-year-old Sven Ormson decides to leave his melancholic existence in Stockholm and take a job mining coal on the remote archipelago of Svalbard. When an avalanche leaves him badly disfigured, however, he abandons mining work and retreats further into the remote fjords with only his dog for company, and letters from family and friends to keep him tenuously tethered to the outside world. As Europe descends into the upheaval of the 20^th century, Sven’s solitary adventures and struggles to survive in a forbidding environment make for riveting reading.