Reading material:
English edition

A Wonderful Life
Insights on Finding a Meaningful Existence 

Frank Martela

Stop seeking for the meaning of life, for the search will only make you unhappy. Frank Martela is here to help you find meaning

✓  The book to address our turbulent times, by the eminent happiness researcher!

✓  An international bestseller with the rights sold to 30 countries!

Is happiness a worthy goal? What is the foundation for meaning in a secular society? Is life an existential void?

Frank Martela answers these questions and more in a relaxed, conversational tone and with a wry sense of humor, placing some of life’s greatest philosophical concerns and quandaries into a modern-day context. Martela quickly and concisely gets to the heart of the matter – your place in the world and how to find meaning in life – yet the emphasis here is on what we do with the life we have and how we can make it more meaningful.

The search for life’s meaning is perhaps the most important quest we can undertake. And for any quest, it’s essential to have a guide. Philosophically probing yet eminently readable, A Wonderful Life is a book you can refer to again and again on your journey toward purpose.

MINÄ, KOIRA JA IHMISKUNTA
Lajien välisen yhteiselon historia
Otava/Like, February 2022, 317 pp.

Reading material:
English sample and synopsis

Me, My Dog and Humanity
A History of Coexistence Between Species

Tiina Raevaara

Has humanity become so powerful through its own merits alone? Or do other species deserve a thanks as well?

✓  An entertaining and narrative deep dive into the shared history of humans and animals

✓  The Finnish answer to Yuval Noah Harari and Rutger Bregman! 

✓  Now a longer, nearly 100-page English sample is available!

In the Autumn of 2018, biologist and award-winning author Tiina Raevaara found herself exhausted and anguished, with her mind dark like a Finland November. She did, however, find comfort in the company of her dog, Igor. She started pondering the reasons for her exhaustion and, simultaneously, the evolution of the human species and its relation to other animals.

The current ascendancy of mankind is, according to Raevaara, not a result of humanity’s innate superiority, but, in fact, a result of its connections and relationships to other species. Ours is not a story of a purpose-driven humankind achieving its predominance in grand solitude, but of a humanity which has striven for connections with other animals.

In her new book ME, MY DOG AND HUMANITY, Raevaara compellingly describes the coexistence between humans and animals, both personally and from the perspective of humankind, and seeks answers to a number of questions:

• Why does an exhausted person prefer to spend time with their dog than other people? 
• Why do animals arouse such strong empathy in us?
• What does the human-animal connection mean from the perspective of evolution and humanity?

The domesticated dog is a much older creation of humankind than agriculture, religion or even writing. Mapping out the mutual journey between humans and dogs, Raevaara sheds light on the most fundamental essences of humanity and its relationship with nature.

EVERYDAY SISU
Tapping into Finnish Fortitude for a Happier, More Resilient Life
Penguin Random House/TarcherPerigee, March 2022, 250 pp.

Reading material:
English edition

Everyday Sisu
Tapping into Finnish Fortitude for a Happier, More Resilient Life

Katja Pantzar

Discover how the happiest people on earth survive—and thrive—through tough times!

✓  The brand new book by the bestselling author of The Finnish Way, sold in 24 territories!

✓  Published by Penguin Random House in the UK & US

✓  Rights sold in Japan, Indonesia, Thailand and World English

Sisu is a powerful mindset that makes Finland one of the happiest countries in the world, despite long winters, social isolation, and a history of challenging times.

Words that express happiness can help you improve your own. Katja Pantzar, author of The Finnish Way, says that a good sense of “sisu”, a Finnish concept that means not giving up in the face of challenges, can improve physical and mental well-being, which has the spillover effect of happiness. Practicing sisu “means using resilience-building skills such as looking for solutions when faced with setbacks and trying to break out of negative lifestyle habits and thought patterns,” Pantzar adds.

In Everyday Sisu, journalist Katja Pantzar explores the simple practices that make Finnish life so stable, sustainable, and healthy for body and mind, even when life doesn’t go as planned. You’ll discover ways to boost your mental and physical resilience to face life’s challenges head-on, including:

• connecting with nature
• strengthening community
• using what you have
• reframing what you can’t control
• adopting a solutions mindset
• finding strength in the struggle

Featuring insights from Finnish experts in mental health, wellness, sustainability, social justice, and more, this practical and empowering guide presents a roadmap for overcoming what you thought you couldn’t — and finding hope and tools to create a brighter way forward.

Reading material:
English edition

The Finnish Way
Finding Courage, Wellness, and Happiness Through the Power of Sisu

Katja Pantzar

✓  A bestselling title, with rights sold in 24 territories!

Journalist Katja Pantzar took a huge leap to move from North America to the remote Nordic country of Finland. What she discovered there transformed her body, mind and spirit.

In this engaging and practical guide, she shows readers how to embrace the “keep it simple and sensible” daily practices with the power of sisu that makes Finns one of the happiest populations in the world, year after year.

Topics include winter swimming, movement as medicine, forest therapy, healthy eating and the Nordic diet, and the gift of sisu – why Finns embrace a special form of courage, grit and determination as a national virtue – and how anyone can dig deeper to survive and thrive through tough times.

Reading material:
English manuscript

Gentle Power
A Revolution on How We Think, Lead, and Succeed Using the Finnish Art of Sisu

Elisabet Lahti

It’s not about whether you’ve won. It’s about how you’ve won. Whether you can look back and say you honored yourself and others. This book, at its core, is both an invitation to examine our relationship to power and awaken to the surprising fortitude of gentleness.

✓  A pioneering work by the international keynote speaker and researcher of the Finnish power quality of sisu!

✓  Learn how to use Gentle Power to overcome adversity and build a legacy of excellence through your everyday interactions

✓  Sounds True will publish Gentle Power in the US & UK in 2023. Rights sold in China pre-publication!

Have you ever been inspired by someone’s graceful yet powerful example in a moment of extraordinary pressure or uncertainty over the right course of action? Researcher Emilia Elisabet Lahti says: “Love is the base element of you and I. It has always been there waiting for you to remove the veils that conceal. Its illuminated expression on this earth is what I call gentle power.”

GENTLE POWER is based on cutting-edge research in applied psychology that shows us how future leadership—be it organizational and political decision making, social activism or parenting—is not about winning (and winning at all cost), but about a commitment to developing a good heart and fighting a fair fight, to lead by example. Through the practice of sisu as the formidable inner strength of every individual, we can overcome adversities. By refining sisu into gentle power, which is a path of thoroughly knowing, owning, and integrating both our strong and soft sides in everyday leadership, we can also pursue excellence in the art that is at the heart of the lived experience—and which the world in its current state is in a dire need of—us being more human and succeeding because we choose this quality first.

This book reaches us at a crucial moment of modern human history. As we take stock and reimagine a better path forward, our ability to elevate our standards regarding how we think, lead, and succeed can offer us an unparalleled opportunity to elevate our own well-being and sense of empowerment and ultimately, that of our entire human family.

Reading material:
English edition

Future Skills

Perttu Pölönen

What are the 12+1 essential skills that will help you defeat the fear of the future?

✓  An essential book for parents, educators, and anyone who wants to prepare themselves for an uncertain future!!

✓  Sold to 6 territories!

The next revolution is a human revolution, says Perttu Pölönen, a futurist, inventor and inspirational speaker. We should develop courage, adaptability, compassion, storytelling, patience and curiosity, to name a few, in order to succeed in the era of machines, robots and artificial intelligence. Pölönen explains how.

FUTURE SKILLS challenges assumptions about the future and provides insightful and thought-provoking observations – there’s a lot to digest. With the world developing so fast, we should not focus on what is changing but rather find what is not going to change. What makes us different from machines, makes us happy.

FUTURE SKILLS has become an instant bestseller in Finland where its readers have reported to have changed their career paths and found meaning in their current jobs. It is a book that gives hope. Pölönen is a bright young mind whose personal experiences and stories make the book lively and engaging, and you will find yourself laughing and sobbing. When nothing is certain, everything is possible.

TULEVAISUUDEN IDENTITEETIT
Otava, January 2021, 192 pp.

Reading material:
English synopsis

Future Identities

Perttu Pölönen

Are you an expander, inspirer, crystallizer, or an enlightener? Find out how to forge your own, unique identity!

✓  The inspiring and thought-provoking follow-up to Future Skills, sold to 7 territories

The years and decades to come will force each of us to rethink our place in this world. Traditionally, identity has been based on a profession, for example, but in the future it is worth building on skills.

Future Identities is an immersive book on identifying one’s own strengths and verbalizing them. If you were an extender, linker or cross-pollinator, what could you do in the future? In his latest book, Pölönen delves into the notion of identity and ponders their formation from different perspectives, then provides the reader with the necessary knowledge and tools to find their strengths and, by extension, their potential identities. Pölönen’s goal is not to arrange people into specific molds, but to break the molds.

PARISUHTEEN PIENI PAHAN MIELEN KIRJA
Otava, February 2022, 128 pp.

Reading material:
English PDF

The Little Book of Bad Moods for Relationships

Lotta Sonninen and Piia Aho

Channel your disappointments, resentments and negative emotions toward relationships into this helpful and trustworthy book!

✓  The newest title in the highly successful THE LITTLE BOOK OF BAD MOODS series, sold in 30 languages!

It’s annoying. It’s irritating. It’s your relationship.

Let’s face it – no relationship is like spending an eternity in the bliss of cloud nine. However lovely, caring, and thoughtful your significant other might be, there are always moments when you have to muster up all of your strength to not let the other know what you think about them. And why is it that the one closest to you always keeps saying and doing all the wrong things?

Not to worry – THE LITTLE BOOK OF BAD MOODS FOR RELATIONSHIPS is here to the rescue!

Fill this adult activity book with your disappointments in relationships, reveal your true thoughts about your significant other (and exes!) and mark down the romantic duds. Reminisce about your worst dates, play some argument bingo and ensure that your partner’s errors are never forgotten! 

The perfect book for you, who would really rather be single.

Reading material:
English sample

Saunafulness
Wellness with Saunas

Carita Harju

The humble sauna can be your pathway to reducing stress and improving your health!

✓  A veritable resource of exercises that can be adjusted according to one’s needs

✓  The newest book by the founder of the Sauna from Finland association

Finnish sauna culture has been inscribed in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, and the sauna is part of an eternally developing and living form of everyday routine, which is splendidly exemplified by the new well-being concept of saunafulness.

Saunafulness is all about holistic wellness, the aim of which is to help you relax. The heart of saunafulness is the sauna and its heat therapy. Fulness, in turn, refers to a holistic approach that combines exercises and wellness to positively impact both mind and body.

It’s only natural that the beneficial effects of sauna – confirmed by many researchers – have brought about a new model for sauna wellness. In her new book, Carita Harju sheds light on the diverse and multifold health benefits of the sauna and how the sauna has increasingly become a source of well-being by reducing stress, strengthening the heart, and improving sleep quality.

Saunafulness is divided into two parts. The first part offers the reader ample information on the health benefits of sauna, based on numerous studies, and presented in easily accessible writing. The second part provides the reader with a variety of natural wellbeing exercises that anyone can adapt to fit their own specific wishes. The exercises unite the mind, the body, one’s health, and all the different senses. Saunafulness can be practiced in any sauna with easy-access materials accompanied by clear instructions.

RAKASTAN SINUSSA IHMISTÄ
Aino ja Alvar Aallon tarina
Otava, September 2021, 450 pp.
Approx. 50-80 photographs & drawings

Reading material:
English sample
English manuscript in August 2022

The Story of Aino and Alvar Aalto

Heikki Aalto-Alanen

The love story of the world-famous, pioneering design couple Aino and Alvar Aalto, written by the Aaltos’ grandson

✓  Based on previously unpublished correspondence, photography, and drawings from 1921 to 1949

✓  Full English text available in August 2022!

✓  World’s most prestigious art publisher Phaidon Press will launch the book in 2023 for the English-speaking world

✓  Rights sold also in Japan, Estonia, Hungary, and counting!

Alvar Aalto and his wife Aino are internationally celebrated for their architecture, furniture, glassware, and other interior design, but their personal lives have been relatively unknown – until now. This book, written by the Aaltos’ grandson, stands apart from countless other works on the Aalto’s lives and careers. It contains photos, sketches, and personal letters between Aino and Alvar, beautifully illustrating how inseparable this couple was both in work and love, and bringing a deeply human element to their story.

“Countless books have been written about Alvar Aalto’s architecture and other works. Recently, Aino Marsio-Aalto has also received the recognition she deserves in her own right as well as in her role as the partner of Alvar Aalto in his rise as one of the leading architects of the 20th century,” says Heikki Aalto-Alanen. “The voice in this book is personal. I want to tell the story of Aino’s and Alvar’s unique partnership, relationship, and their joint life work from the perspective of a family member. I also want their own voices to be heard.”

In addition to the photographs from the family archive, the book is illustrated with Aino’s and Alvar’s drawings of each other and of their children, along with architectural drawings and photographs.

Reading material:
English edition

The Women I Think About at Night

Mia Kankimäki

What can a 40-something childless woman do with her life?  Hop on a plane and follow the footsteps of the historical female heroes of their time! 

✓  Over 45,000 copies sold in Finland!

✓  An international hit sold to 21 territories, published recently in Italy to raving reviews and in Albania and Slovenia!

✓  A TV series based on the book in development by napafilms!

Have you heard about Artemisia Gentileschi, Lavinia Fontana or Nellie Bly? What about Karen Blixen? The Women I Think About at Night follows in the footsteps of 10 historical women, who did what was impossible for women to do in their own times: travel the world or create a career as an artist. And these women were quite successful – some of them actually became celebrities of their own time! So why have they been forgotten by the history books?

Finnish writer Mia Kankimäki sold her house, packed her suitcase and traveled the world to find out. Part biography, part travelogue, this book takes you from Karen Blixen’s farm in Kenya to Renaissance artists’ Florence and modern-day Japan.

Warning: May cause strong case of wanderlust!

A publishing sensation in Finland with over tens of thousands of copies sold, The Women I Think About at Night solidifies Kankimäki’s standing as one of Finland’s leading new authors. Her book was translated by Douglas Robinson and published by Simon & Schuster, one of the four largest English-language publishers in the world. Her book has received positive reviews in Publisher’s Weekly, Library Journal, Travel & Leisure, and Kirkus Review, along with Fortune magazine.

Reading material:
English sample & synopsis
German and Italian PDFs

Things That Make One’s Heart Beat Faster

Mia Kankimäki

A nonfiction narrative about a Finnish writer’s trip to Japan to look for her soulmate – who lived more than 1000 years ago

✓  More than 45,000 copies sold in Finland!

✓  Rights sold recently in the Netherlands, published in Japan and Germany to excellent reviews!

Mia Kankimäki quits her job and embarks on an adventure. She travels to Kyoto to research Sei Shonagon, a Japanese writer and lady-in-waiting who wrote about her life in the court of Heian era Japan. Mia doesn’t speak a word of Japanese, and isn’t quite accustomed to scientific research, but her endeavor produces the most wonderful book about Japan, Sei Shonagon, and a middle-aged woman’s solo travels.

Despite her struggles and initial culture shock, Mia finds herself mesmerized by temples, cherry blossoms, kabuki theater, Zen meditation and tearooms. She reads ‘The Pillow Book‘ of Sei Shonagon and finds a soul sister – a modern woman who loves making lists of all things charming, annoying, elegant and things that make one’s heart beat faster.

HISTORIAN JÄNNÄT NAISET
Merirosvoja, meedioita, varkaita ja vakoojaprinsessoja
Atena, August  2020, 503 pp.

Reading material:
English sample

Extraordinary Women of History
Pirates, Psychics, Priestesses and Princess Spies

Maria Pettersson

Extraordinary, “bad-ass” women of history – meet pirates, psychics, priestesses, princess spies and dozens of other women whose stories your history teacher never told you

✓  A bestselling, nonfiction book in Finland with over 40,000 copies sold!

✓  Now also available – an abridged version with a selection of 50 extraordinary women from history!

The captain who ruled the biggest pirate fleet in history. The scientist who changed our understanding of physics, while taking the most famous geniuses of her time as her lovers, and getting in trouble for gambling. The con artist who could fool any jeweler in Europe. The baseball star who played wearing a fake beard. Teenagers recruited by the Resistance because of their innocent looks, who learned to blow up railways and shoot Nazis from their bicycles. The master of Jujutsu who taught the Suffragettes to fight back. The cult leader who made her followers undergo cosmetic surgery to look more like her. The kidnapped girl who ended up ruling the biggest empire that had ever existed, with her female lover as her queen.

EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN OF HISTORY introduces over a hundred exceptional women from different periods of history and from all corners of the world. It is a veritable treasury of captivating stories and unsung ballads about the exciting women in history. Outrageous, amazing, terrible, heroic, thrilling and above all extraordinary; their life stories make the reader gasp and ask: “Why haven’t I heard of them before?”

Reading material:
English PDF

Putin’s Trolls

Jessikka Aro

A journalistic nonfiction book that reads like a real-life spy thriller and reveals the methods of the Kremlin’s modern information warfare

✓  Rights sold to 14 territories!

✓  Published to excellent reviews in the US, publication in Germany in August 2022!

✓  Jessikka Aro won the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Courage of Journalism Award for her investigation!

PUTIN’S TROLLS is a first-hand memoir/reportage account by award-winning Finnish journalist Jessikka Aro who was bullied out of her country by Putin’s internet trolls, revealing the true face of an invisible threat that is only growing in power. Russia wages war against civilians online. Every critical voice is an enemy. 

PUTIN’S TROLLS presents the criminal smearing campaign, launched and approved by the Kremlin against private individuals around Western countries. It is a chilling account of Russia’s modern tools of information warfare, shedding light on the individuals and organizations behind the Kremlin’s coordinated, military-style social media psy-ops.

STALIN JA SUOMEN KOHTALO
Otava, October 2016, 240 pp.

Reading material:
Finnish edition
English manuscript in September

Stalin and the Fate of Finland

Kimmo Rentola

A meticulously-researched insight into critical points in the history of relations between Finland and the Soviet Union

✓  Winner of the Lauri Jäntti Prize for non-fiction literature! 

✓  Full English manuscript available in September 2022!

How did Finland evade Joseph Stalin’s crosshairs three times? Did Stalin have a special relationship with Finland and the Finns? Why didn’t he continue the Soviet onslaught on Finland during the Winter War in 1940? Why did the dictator back down from his aspirations and demands towards Finland during the peace negotiations in 1944? Why did 1948 remain the year of an unfulfilled coup in Finland? The answer lies in the relations between Finland and Russia which remain highly timely to this day.

Joseph Stalin has been one of the individuals with the most influence on the history of independent Finland. There are few who have made so many far-reaching decisions as Stalin: he decreed the beginning and the end of the Winter War, the Moscow Armistice of 1944 that ended the Continuation War was signed with his authorization, and when, in 1948, it was time to decide whether Finland would become a ‘people’s republic’ or not, he initially pushed forward but eventually backed down. All of these decisions can be seen as pivotal to the fate of Finland, its society, its independence, the life and death of the Finnish people.

The book focuses on the decisions of Stalin in which the entire existence or, at the very least, the essential nature of that existence, of Finland was at stake.

Reading material:
English manuscript

The Finnish Factor
Kekkonen, Kennedy, Khrushchev and the Cold War

Gordon F. Sander

With the fate of his country and relations between superpowers in the balance, what is the President of Finland to do?

✓  A gripping and lucid account of one of the lesser-known crises of the Cold War 

✓  The latest title from the Pulitzer Prize-nominated reporter, historian, author and Nordic specialist

✓  Rights sold to Estonia!

In the fall of 1961, Soviet and American tanks faced off at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin in an explosive confrontation known as the Berlin Crisis, which many feared might lead to World War III. At the same time, 1500 kilometers to the northeast, in Finland, the USSR and the US were squaring off for another potentially explosive confrontation over the Kremlin’s desire to maintain its sphere of influence over that country. This has become known as the Note Crisis.

The Note Crisis, the events leading up to it, and the three figures who were at the center of it—Urho Kekkonen, the Machiavellian president of Finland, fighting for his political life; Nikita Khrushchev, the feisty Soviet premier and Kekkonen’s sponsor; and John F. Kennedy, the US president, who sent a top secret message of support to Kekkonen—comprise the climax of Gordon Sander’s groundbreaking book.

Sander’s biography, focusing on Kekkonen’s pivotal first term and culminating with the Note Crisis and Kekkonen’s re-election, is based on three years of research and includes exclusive interviews with Khrushchev’s late son Sergey, Kekkonen’s former chiefs of staff, and the incumbent President of Finland, Sauli Niinistö.

THE FINNISH FACTOR is intended for  general audiences and scholarly ones. It would be of interest to anyone who:
–is interested in reading and learning about one of the great “forgotten” crises of the Cold War
–is interested in Russian/Soviet history and/or Nikita Khrushchev
–is interested in the Kennedy administration

Reading material:
English sample and summary

The 50 Most Dangerous Companies in the World

Juha-Pekka Raeste and Hannu Sokala

How could a few dozen business giants challenge the foundations of democracy, destabilize institutions, and determine the state of the environment?

✓  Rights sold to 8 countries throughout Europe and Taiwan!

✓  Now a fresh, updated manuscript available!

Large multinational corporations influence how we think, what we eat, who we meet, how we spend our time, and even who we vote for. As those businesses grow, their influence and power over people and governments also grows. To make sure the future is not dictated by corporations, but by people, we need to know more about them.

This exciting nonfiction title by experienced financial journalists Hannu Sokala and Juha-Pekka Raeste covers 50 companies that comprise a large part of global market forces. They determine what kind of a world we all live in. Some of the companies in the book are relatively unknown (Zhōngguó Yāncǎo Zǒnggōngsī and BlackRock), some predictable (Google, Amazon), some may seem surprising (Ikea and Disney), and some inevitable (Gazprom and Chevron).

Some of the companies benefit from our everyday needs (Cargill, Coca-Cola), some from our vanity (ByteDance, Facebook), and some from our greed (Goldman Sachs, Berkshire Hathaway). The book reads like a thriller, but it is nonfiction. It offers a comprehensive and often a startling perspective on the most important, and dangerous, companies in the world.

SUSTAINABLE INVESTING
Beating the Market with ESG
Palgrave Macmillan, June 2021, 241 pp.

Reading material:
English edition

Sustainable Investing
Beating the Market with ESG

Hanna Silvola and Tiina Landau

Learn how to stay on top of the investing game in an ever-changing world – and how to do it sustainably

✓  Rights sold in China and Estonia! Published in the US by Palgrave Macmillan!

✓  Recommended reading for investors and the interested public alike!

This book reviews the latest methods of sustainable investing and financial profit making, describing how ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) analysis can identify future business opportunities, and managing risk to achieve abnormal returns. Megatrends such as climate change, sustainable development, and digitalisation increase uncertainty and information asymmetry and have an impact on the future returns on investments. From a profit perspective, it is largely about how ESG factors affect the long-term value added by companies and the valuation of companies in the financial markets. Although sustainability provides an opportunity for abnormal returns, this phenomenon must be considered in a critical light. This book describes the risks and limitations associated with the accountability and availability of ESG data and tools.

SUSTAINABLE INVESTING provides both practical models and academic findings for assessing the sustainability of investees and introduces practical tools and methods to practice ESG analysis. It focuses on the ESG analysis of equity investments and fund investments in institutional investment organizations, and provides a handbook for all investment analysts who are involved with investment decisions. Readers will benefit from understanding the methods, opportunities and challenges that professionals use in their ESG analysis with cases, interviews and practical tools for both institutional and private investors.

The English edition of SUSTAINABLE INVESTING is an updated version of the original Finnish title Vastuullisuudesta ylituotoa sijoituksiin.