Red Milk
3.490 kr.Gunnar Kampen grows up in Reykjavík during the Second World War in a household fiercely opposed to Hitler and Nazism. A caring brother and son, at nineteen he seems set to lead a conventional life. Yet in the spring of 1958, he founds a covert, anti-Semitic nationalist party with ties to a burgeoning international network of neo-Nazis – a cause that will take him on a clandestine mission to England from which he never returns.
In this striking novel, inspired by one of the ringleaders of an Icelandic neo-Nazi group formed in the late 1950s, Sjón masterfully constructs the portrait of an ordinary young man who becomes a right-wing zealot. Exposing the roots of the far-right movements of today, Red Milk is a timely reminder that the seeds of extremism can be hard to detect and the allure of fascism remains dangerously potent.
From the Mouth of the Whale
3.490 kr.In this magical evocation of a vanished age, a poet and self-taught healer is banished in 1635 to a barren island off Iceland – a place darkened by superstition, poverty and cruelty.
With only a purple sandpiper for company, Jónas Pálmason retraces his path to exile, recalling his exorcism of a walking corpse, the massacre of innocent Basque whalers at the hands of local villagers and the deaths of three of his children.
But amid the cacophony of Copenhagen he will find hope and, finally, recognition of his enlightened ideas.
CoDex 1962
3.490 kr.Jósef Loewe enters the world as a lump of clay – carried in a hatbox by his Jewish father Leo, a fugitive in WWII Germany.
Taking refuge in a small-town guesthouse, Leo discovers a kindred spirit in the young woman who nurses him back to health and together they shape the clay into a baby. But en route to safety in Iceland, he is robbed of the ring needed to bring the child to life. It is not until 1962 that Jósef can be ‘born’, only to grow up with a rare disease. Fifty-three years on, it leads him into the hands of a power-hungry Icelandic geneticist, just when science and politics are threatening to lead us all down a dark, dangerous road.
At once playful and profoundly serious, this remarkable novel melds multiple genres into a unique whole: a mind-bending read and a biting, timely attack on nationalism.
The Blue Fox
3.490 kr.On a stark Icelandic mountainside, the imposing Reverend Baldur Skuggason hunts an elusive blue vixen for her near-mythical pelt. The treacherous journey across snow and ice will push his physical and mental endurance to the limit.
In Baldur Skuggason’s parish, a young woman with Down’s Syndrome is buried. After being found shackled to the timbers of a shipwreck in 1868, she was rescued by the naturalist Fridrik B. Fridjonsson. Now he will open the package she always carried with her, hoping to solve the puzzle of her origins.
As the ice begins to melt, the mystery surrounding the trio’s connected fates is unravelled in this spellbinding fable, an exquisite tale of metamorphosis by one of Iceland’s most acclaimed writers.
Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was
3.490 kr.Reykjavik, 1918. The eruptions of the Katla volcano darken the sky night and day. Yet despite the natural disaster, the shortage of coal and the Great War still raging in the outside world, life in the small capital goes on as always.
Sixteen-year-old Máni Steinn lives for the movies. Awake, he lives on the fringes of society. Asleep, he dreams in pictures, the threads of his own life weaving through the tapestry of the films he loves.
When the Spanish flu epidemic comes ashore, killing hundreds of townspeople and forcing thousands to their sick besds, the shadows that linger at the edges of existence grow darker and Máni is forced to re-evaluate both the society around him and his role in it.
Evoking the moment when Iceland’s saga culture met the new narrative form of the cinema and when the isolated island became swept up in global events, this is the story of a misfit transformed by his experiences in a world where life and death, reality and imagination, secrets and revelations jostle for dominance.
Harm
3.490 kr.When wealthy doctor Ríkarður Magnússon goes to sleep in his luxurious caravan and doesn’t wake up, detectives Guðgeir Fransson and Elsa Guðrún are called to the Westman Islands to investigate what looks like murder.
Suspicion immediately falls on Ríkharður’s young, beautiful and deeply troubled girlfriend – but there are no easy answers in this case as they are drawn into family feuds, disgruntled friends and colleagues, and the presence of a group of fitness-obsessed over-achievers with secrets of their own.
As their investigation makes progress, Guðgeir and Elsa Guðrún are forced to confront their own preconceptions and prejudices as they uncover the sinister side of Ríkharður’s past.
Harm is the third novel featuring the soft-spoken Reykjavík detective Guðgeir Fransson to appear in English. Sólveig Pálsdóttir again weaves a complex web of intrigue that plays out in the Westman Islands, remote southern Iceland and Reykjavík while asking some searching questions about things society accepts at face value – and others it is not prepared to tolerate.
Horses
4.590 kr.The Icelandic horse has endured much during its millennium of service to a hard people in a cold land. Blazing trails through lava fields, shuttling between far-flung fjords, starved, drowned and even brought back from the dead. Here we see Iceland’s hardiest helper from every angle, the same beast who first set hoof on Iceland’s shores in the 9th century, through stories free from all the hype and schmaltz of the tourist brochures.
With their first book, Birds, Hjörleifur Hjartarson and Rán Flygenring dazzled us with Iceland’s fascinating feathered friends. Now they’re back in the saddle with their unique take on Iceland’s iconic equine.
Vigdís: A Book About the World’s First Female President
4.390 kr.Vigdís Finnbogadóttir made history in 1980 when she became the world’s first woman to be democratically elected president. Her rise to Iceland’s highest office caused ripples throughout the nation and beyond, challenging the conservative ideas of older generations and inspiring girls and women to think big.
In this acclaimed picture book by Rán Flygenring, one of Iceland’s most celebrated illustrators, readers are invited to join a young and imaginative writer-in-the-making, who pays an unforgettable visit to Vigdís on a mission to write the president’s life story. The book received the Reykjavík Children’s Book Award and was selected as the booksellers’ favorite title as well.
Volcano
4.590 kr.On an impromptu bring-your-kid-to-work day, Kaktus goes on a bus trip with tour guide and mother extraordinaire Brá. Together with a group of eccentric sightseers they venture on a classic day tour of waterfalls, furry horses and postcard perfect landscapes. But their day takes an unexpected twist when Kaktus spots something glowing red hot in the distance…
Award-winning author and illustrator Rán Flygenring is a true volcano aficionado. After trekking to the eruptions on Reykjanes peninsula nearly two dozen times, she now brings to life the dazzling volcanic spectacles she experienced there in the thrilling and sometimes perilous events of this book.