I'm pretty late to the party, but I thought I would add my voice anyway. When I first started learning Swedish, I was interested in developing my receptive skills. In fact
HTLAL Elenia wrote:For Swedish, I'm focusing on developing passive skills, in particular my reading comprehension. It would be nice to be able to speak, but at this moment I'd rather understand.
Of course I'm a special case and in the very next post I was writing about trying to learn to sing a song (which was the most production I did in those days). You've done work on phonemes. The FSI recordings and native content will do the rest for you. If you do at any point decide you want to speak, you'll have all the groundwork laid out for you and a good ear to self correct with.
And jumping into things is how I got started with Swedish. The first thing I ever did was buy a novel by Swedish horror writer John Ajvide Lindqvist and look up every single word with google translate. I kept that up only for as long as I enjoyed it. I've not completed a single course, although I always feel I should go back and at least try.
As for recommendations: you've probably seen all of these mentioned in my log, but here goes.
Of Astrid Lindgren, I have only read (and listened to) the Pippi Långstrump [Pippi Longstocking] stories and
Mio, min Mio - which I loved. I also love all the short stories I have read by Tove Jansson. My favourite book by her is
Sommarboken. I also like her Mumin comics, although I've only read them in English. The cartoon was available on youtube, last I checked, and is pretty easy to follow. The pronunciation is Fennosvensk but it won't hinder your understanding. It's good for when you just need a good dose of cute.
Moving up in age, I like the Engelfors series of young adult books by Mats Strandberg and Sara Bergmark Elfgren. They're - again - easy to follow and quite readable (I found!) Last year we had a forum read-along of Siri Pettersen's Ravenrings series which is originally Norwegian. It was very popular in Sweden as well and - plus point - it is cheaper to buy the Swedish translation here in London than the Norwegian originals. It has no English translation as yet, which is why I include it. My boyfriend likes Nene Orme's
Udda Verklighet which is urban fantasy set in Malmö. I am less of a fan but it is written in easy to follow language.
For teens but with a more complex written style is
Kaninhjärta by Christin Ljungqvist. I really enjoy the language in that but her sentences and usages are non-standard - definitely erring on the side of the flowery. And my final recommendation (for here and now) is
Is by Ulla Lena Lundberg. I have only heard the start of it in Swedish, and have read half of it in English translation as I got it cheaply in the bookshop where I worked. I would definitely recommend it. I can't make comments on the language, but the story is lovely.