The Little Book of the Icelanders

Update June 2011: I’ve just signed a deal with Forlagið, Iceland’s largest publisher, for the publication of this book in print form (and electronic form too, in fact). Publication slated for early 2012.

Hi, and thank you for your interest in The Little Book of the Icelanders – a collection of 50 miniature essays about the quirks and foibles of the Icelandic people and what it is like to live in their midst.

In 1994, I moved back to Iceland after more than 20 years of living abroad, and ever since I have been in the enviable [to me!] position of being both an insider and an outsider in Icelandic society.

I figure this makes me sufficiently qualified to dissect the national psyche of the Icelandic people.

Among the fascinating subjects broached in the book:

• the appalling driving habits of the Icelanders
• naming conventions and customs
• the Icelanders’ profound fear of commitment
• the Icelander’s penchant for irreverence
• why Icelandic women are really men
• how the Icelanders manage to make social interactions really complicated
• the importance of the family in Icelandic society
• where to go to meet the real Icelanders [and possibly score some free financial advice]
• Rituals associated with weddings, confirmations, graduations, and deaths

… and many, many more.

The Little Book of the Icelanders is an electronic download and costs USD 24.99.

Please note that this is not a traditional book printed on paper, but a book for reading on an eReader or on your computer [or for printing out on a regular printer].

[See instructions for buying and a a bit more about the pricing, below.]

CLICK HERE TO BUY:

Readers’ reactions

We’ve had excellent responses to the book!

Iceland Review online, Iceland’s longest-established English-language website, gives the book four stars out of five:

One chapter leads to the next, creating a continuous chain of storytelling. It feels as if you’re sitting in the author’s kitchen, enjoying a cup of coffee and conversing with her about the quirks of her countrymen, every now and then bursting out laughing. [...] I’m going to heartily recommend The Little Book of the Icelanders, both to fans of Sigmundsdóttir’s blog and those unfamiliar with her work. [Full review here.]

From Icelandic-Canadian paper Lögberg-Heimskringla:

There aren’t many books I’d recommend reading over morning coffee but The Little Book of the Iceanders is one of them. [...] I laughed at the essays in this book, not because I was laughing at Icelanders but because I recognize much of the behaviour in myself and members of my family. It felt good. It’s not just the sanest, most impressive characteristics that we pass on and share but also some of the zaniest. As I read this book, I frequently thought, yup, I’m definitely part Icelandic. [Full review here.]

Quentin Bates, author of Frozen Out:

I don’t know if my appreciative snorts of laughter distracted the conjuror or his sparse audience, but The Little Book of the Icelanders is a great read. There’s so much in there that’s absolutely spot on that I could recognise from my own experience, all succinctly put and with an unmistakable affection for Icelanders and their odd ways.  [Full review here.]

Sylvia Hikins, author of Journeys:

This is a book that made me laugh out loud but at the same time exposed human frailties that we all recognise and share. Buy it and enjoy it. Its sweet taste will stay just like your last Rollo!

The Icelandic multinational Marel purchased 75 copies for distribution among their staff, to facilitate inter-cultural understanding.

Readers’ responses on our Facebook page:

Great work. – Sue Rudge

Great reading. Waiting for part two. – Steve Guttormsson

Frábær bók! Already waiting for II. – Gunnar Davíðsson

Really enlightening to read about quirks and foibles, many of which I have been faced with in Iceland myself. A good and humorous book! – Joerg Wi

Now for the practicalities

First of all, you can download a free sample of the book by clicking here.

If you decide to purchase the book, simply click on one of the BUY NOW buttons. When you click BUY NOW, it will take you to a PayPal page, where you are invited to make your payment either via PayPal or by credit card. Those of you who purchased my previous eBook Living Inside the Meltdown will be familiar with this procedure.

When your payment has been processed, you are automatically redirected to a page where you will find a link to download the book. Important: you must choose to SAVE the file to your computer. Once you have done that, you can open the zipped file you’ve just downloaded, in which you will find two separate versions of the book – an ePub file and a and PDF file.

What is different this time, however, is that The Little Book of the Icelanders is available not only in PDF format [like the Living Inside book] but also in ePub format. That means it can be read on almost all e-Readers, or easily converted for those who don’t support ePub [like Kindle].

If you plan to read the book on your computer or iPad or similar, you will probably want to use the PDF file. If you have an e-Reader, you’ll want to send the ePub file to the reader. [NB if you have a Kindle, you can easily convert the file with Calibre, which is free and easy to use.]

[Even if you don’t have an eReader now, you can always retain the ePub file if you happen to get one later.]

If this sounds complicated, never fear! It really is not. In the unlikely event that you run into problems, please email me and I’ll try to sort it out for you as soon as possible.

CLICK HERE TO BUY:

A few words about the pricing

When I launched my last e-book, a few readers were a little, shall we say, perplexed about the price of the book. They did not understand why an electronic book was more expensive than a regular printed book they might be able to pick up at a bookstore.

It’s like this: what we have here is a self-published eBook. It’s taken many hours of writing, designing and coding to put together. I do not have the advantage of a big publisher behind me, who proffers an advance and, upon completion of the book, instructs the marketing department to launch a campaign that, with any luck, will result in the sale of thousands of copies. Instead I have a small community of interested readers who may or may not want to buy the book, and if I’m lucky I’ll break the three-digit mark. If I’m unlucky, there will be several pirated versions of the book for every sold copy – that’s the downside of electronic publishing.

If the last e-book is anything to go by, sales revenues will barely be enough to compensate me for the time and effort involved, much less turn a profit.