Roy Jacobsen

"Islanders are never afraid, if they were, they wouldn't be able to live here. Born on the island that bears her name, Ingrid Barrøy's world is circumscribed by storm-scoured rocks and the moods of the sea by which her family lives and dies. But her father dreams of a bridge, and her mother longs for her own childhood island, and Norway faces its own sea change: the advent of a modern world and its attendant unpredictability and violence. Brilliantly...

"No-one can be alone on an island . . . But Ingrid is alone on Barrøy, the island that bears her name, and the war of her childhood has been replaced by a new, more terrible present: Norway is under the Nazi boot. When the bodies from a bombed battleship begin to wash up on the shore, Ingrid can't know that one will be alive, and warm enough to erase a lifetime of loneliness - nor can she imagine what suffering she will endure in protecting her lover,...

Building a fire to warm your home is incredibly satisfying. Splitting logs, stacking and seasoning the wood, and then building a fire is the height of self-sufficiency. Norwegian Wood is a practical and inspiring book that teaches you how to do all of those things. A runaway best-seller in Europe, the book provides in-depth information about tree types, wood-stacking methods, tools, and stoves; it also examines the history of man's longstanding need...