Books from Iceland
68 popular icelandic books
Travel the world without leaving your chair.
The target of the Read Around The World Challenge is to read at least one book written by an author from each and every country in the world.
All books that are listed here as part of the "Read Around Europe Challenge" were written by authors from Iceland.
Find a great book for the next part of your reading journey around the world from this book list. The following popular books have been recommended so far.
51.
Silence of the Grave : An Inspector Erlendur Novel by Arnaldur Indridason EN
Description:
“Now Iceland has its own Mankell.” ---Holger Kreitling, Die Welt (Germany) Last year Jar City introduced international crime-writing sensation Arnaldur Indridason to rave reviews and a rousing welcome from American thriller fans. And now, Silence of the Grave, the next in this stunning series has won the coveted Golden Dagger Award. Presented by the British Crime Writers' Association, previous winners of this award include John Le Carre, Minette Walters, Henning Mankell, and James Lee Burke. In Silence of the Grave, a corpse is found on a hill outside the city of Reykjavík, and Detective Inspe... continue
53.
Snowblind by Ragnar Jónasson EN
Description:
Taut and terrifying, a startling debut from an extraordinary new talent, taking Nordic Noir to soaring new heights Siglufjorour: an idyllically quiet fishing village in Northern Iceland, where no one locks their doors, and which is accessible only via a small mountain tunnel. Ari Thor Arason: a rookie policeman on his first posting, far from his girlfriend in Reykjavik, with a past that he s unable to leave behind. When a young woman is found lying half-naked in the snow, bleeding and unconscious, and a highly esteemed, elderly writer falls to his death in the local theater, Ari is dragged str... continue
54.
Summer Light, and Then Comes the Night : A Novel by Jon Kalman Stefansson EN
Description:
From the "Icelandic Dickens (Irish Examiner)," a writer who "shares the elemental grandeur of Cormac McCarthy" (Times Literary Supplement), comes this profound and playful masterwork of literature--winner of the Icelandic Literature Prize and longlisted for France's Prix Medicis Étrangere--that ponders the beauty and mystery of life and our deepest existential questions. In small places, life becomes bigger. Sometimes distance from the world's tumult can open our hearts and our dreams. In a village of four hundred souls, the infinite light of an Icelandic summer makes its inhabitants want to e... continue
55.
The Atom Station by Halldór Laxness EN
Description:
From the Nobel Prize–winning author of Independent People: A biting satire of post-WWII Iceland caught between superpowers at the dawn of the Nuclear Age. When the Americans make an offer to buy Icelandic land to build an atomic war base, a storm of protest is provoked throughout the country, and it is here that Laxness finds the catalyst for his story. Told by a country girl from the north, the novel follows her experiences upon taking up employment as a maid in the house of her Member of Parliament. She finds herself in a world very different to that of her upbringing and, marvelling at the ... continue
56.
The Blue Fox : A Novel by Sjón EN
Description:
An elusive fox leads a hunter on a transformative quest, while a naturalist endeavors to build a life for a young woman with Down syndrome whom he rescued from a shipwreck years earlier.
57.
The Darkness : If you like Saga Noren from The Bridge, then you'll love Hulda Hermannsdottir by Ragnar Jónasson EN
Description:
If you love BBC's The Bridge, then you'll love The Darkness . . . ____________ A young woman is found dead on a remote Icelandic beach. She came looking for safety, but instead she found a watery grave. A hasty police investigation determines her death as suicide . . . When Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir of the Reykjavik police is forced into early retirement, she is told she can investigate one last cold case of her choice - and she knows which one. What she discovers is far darker than suicide . . . And no one is telling Hulda the whole story. When her own colleagues try to put the... continue
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59.
The Greenhouse by Auður A. Ólafsdóttir EN
Description:
Lobbi, a young man just leaving for a new job, experiences a chain of life changing events including the death of his mother and unexpected fatherhood for himself, but as he focuses on the cultivation of a rare eight-petaled rose he learns how to adjust to his new life and to cultivate love as well.
60.
The Legacy : A Thriller by Yrsa Sigurdardottir EN
Description:
Required to both question and protect a traumatized seven-year-old girl who is the only witness to a murder, rookie detective Huldar and psychologist Freyja navigate elusive clues left behind by an unusually slippery killer.