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The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia

Michael Booth

3.86 · Rating details · 8,407 ratings · 1,152 reviews

Journalist Michael Booth has lived among the Scandinavians for more than ten years and has grown increasingly frustrated with the rose-tinted view of this part of the world offered up by the Western media. In this timely book, he leaves his adopted home of Denmark and embarks on a journey through all five of the Nordic countries to discover who these curious tribes are, th ...more

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Paperback, 416 pages

Published February 6th 2014 by Jonathan Cape

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Jul 15, 2015 Caroline rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 5-star-books, world

This is a book about Scandinavia - judged time and time again by various polls to be the happiest and most satisfying place to live in the world.

Yet we British ignore it. I came to this book with high levels of ignorance.... It made me realise how much we look south - towards France, Italy, Spain and Greece. We want sunshine and olives, and Mediterranean waves lapping at our feet. We don't give a hoot about the northern lands, and their strange cold habits.

Well, more fool us. This book is fascin ...more

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Aug 01, 2015 Diane rated it it was amazing

Recommended to Diane by: Caroline

Shelves: audiobooks, nonfiction, british-charm, travelogues, favorites, sociology-psychology

This is my new favorite book, and I'm excited to start pestering others to read it.

The Almost Nearly Perfect People is my idea of a perfect read, with its elements of travelogue, history, anthropological and sociological observations, all peppered with British humor. A blurb quote on my copy described it as "Bill Bryson goes to Scandinavia," which is a good description.

Michael Booth is a British journalist who lives in Denmark. One day he saw a story in the newspaper about the Danes being ranked ...more

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Jan 08, 2015 Gini rated it did not like it

I really wanted this book to be good.
And I am SO mad that it was terrible!
Ugh.
This is exactly the topic that I want to read about--why do we have this pervasive envy of all things Scandinavian? Is it deserved? What are the Scandinavian countries really like, are they really paradise on earth? What aren't we seeing through our worship of them?
This book looks like it will answer these questions, but it answers none. It is a poorly written blog post of a book. "Here is a personal anecdote about the ...more

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Dec 26, 2015 Esil rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

I listened to the audio of The Almost Nearly Perfect People. It was entertaining, interesting and thought provoking. Michael Booth is a Brit who has moved to Denmark, as his wife wanted to return to her home country. From this vantage point, Booth sets out to write a book about the people of Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden, and to explore what makes their lives different, better, worse and odd, compared to each other and especially compared to the rest of the world. His starting poi I listened to the audio of The Almost Nearly Perfect People. It was entertaining, interesting and thought provoking. Michael Booth is a Brit who has moved to Denmark, as his wife wanted to return to her home country. From this vantage point, Booth sets out to write a book about the people of Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden, and to explore what makes their lives different, better, worse and odd, compared to each other and especially compared to the rest of the world. His starting point are statistics suggesting that the people of Denmark are happier than people anywhere else in the world. He provides some historical context and anecdotes, recounts his own experiences and reports on interviews with experts and ordinary people. (I became quite a bore at the dinner table at my house for a few weeks as I recounted some of these interesting tidbits of information.) He packages the whole thing with a lot of humour, some self-deprecation, many strong opinions, many impressionistic reactions and very little objectivity. The narrator of the audio has a great spirited British accent which brings a lot of life to the whole experience. Booth doesn’t set out to bust the myth that these Nordic countries make for a peaceful stable life, but he digs a bit deeper and theorizes about some of the causes and effects of these strong social democratic countries. He highlights the tension between the benefits of economic and social stability and the inevitable consequential sameness and conventionality. He takes offence at the taxation rates, but recognizes that these are countries with extraordinary school systems and social safety nets. He dwells on the equality between the sexes and the smaller spread between rich and poor, but recognizes that these countries face real challenges when it comes to recent immigration movements. Notably, he is fearless when it comes to making generalizations and pointing out some of the deficiencies or down sides to the countries and cultures he depicts. There’s a bit of a nudge-nudge-wink-wink quality to some of what recounts – look at how absurdly modest the Danes are, how can anyone stand paying such high taxes, what’s with waiting for a green light to cross a street when there’s no car in sight, look at the obedient Swedes swiftly eliminating their gender pronouns in the name of gender equality, etc... He’s not entirely critical of the underlying values, but gently mocking the reality that comes with some of these values. Which for a Canadian listener makes for an interesting experience because in many ways what Booth describes is not that different from our Canadian reality. So while his book was entertaining and interesting, it also provoked me to think of some of what I take for granted, to try to see it from an outside perspective. Although, really, in the end, I still quite like where I live. Which is in fact Booth’s starting point, namely what makes the people of northern Europe generally content with their lot in life. Don’t listen to The Almost Nearly Perfect People if you’re looking for a serious well researched book about the northern European countries. Do listen to it if you’re looking for an entertaining thought provoking book about what makes for a good place to live. ...more

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Jun 02, 2014 Terje Enge rated it it was amazing

I am a Scandinavian who was based in Norway for more than sixty years, this book shows that I'm not even close to perfect.
But this book is: It is good written, it is funny and it even gave a Norwegian new insight(!).
It is both a critique and hymn to the supposedly the happiest, most trusting and successfull people on this planet.
I always loved Denmark, I even planned to move to Copenhagen once upon a time. After having read this book I'm glad I didn't. I learned that the Norwegians are even more ...more

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Nov 05, 2014 Marianne rated it liked it

"I'm from Norway/Sweden/Denmark/Iceland/Finland, don't you know WHERE THAT IS?" *Cue offended eye rolling*

Yes, we're all been there. At some point in our lives we all learned a valuable lesson, even some Europeans don't know where our countries are situated.

If you're from any of the Nordic countries, you'll most likely have been asked one or more of the following questions more than once:

1. Norway? Isn't that the capital of Sweden?
2. All Swedes are blond, so why is your hair brown?
3. Denmark? O ...more

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Feb 03, 2015 Henna Pääkkönen rated it really liked it

Shelves: travel

I am still laughing out loud here, having just finished this book.
As a typical Finn, i enjoyed reading about how a foreigner sees my fellow countrymen, as well as having a good laugh about it, but this book was in fact much more. It is an insight into the Nordics (country by country) by an Englishman who has lived 10+ years in Denmark and set on a mission across the Nordics to understand these societies...
The book is hilarious, and drills into the national stereotypes, jokes about them and tries ...more

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Mar 02, 2014 Andrew Davis rated it it was ok

Shelves: travel

A set of observations on each of the Scandinavian countries, including Iceland by a journalist married to Danish woman. An interesting as a personal view or set of observations but without much background in history or sociology. A bit pedestrian, especially that some of the views are strictly personal without too much support in facts or wider analysis. Still managed to get through 80% of the text but run out of patience when reading about Sweden - the last country discussed. Apart from Malmo a ...more

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Feb 16, 2014 Becky rated it it was amazing

Shelves: in-my-house, scandi, politics-society, language

This is an absolutely engrossing look at the people and societies that make up the Nordic countries. I should probably come clean and admit that I have a deep fondness for this part of the world, a fondness that in the case of Finland probably extends into pure adulation. I have spent happy times in the various countries, love the films, avidly read the books and cheer on the sportsmen. If the whole place wasn't so very expensive to visit, and if speaking/hearing the languages didn't so often gi ...more

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Dec 25, 2015 Ken rated it really liked it

Shelves: finished-in-2016, nonfiction

An interesting tour through the five Nordic countries of Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden. Only Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are technically "Scandinavian" and they're thick as thieves if you consider their history (which none of us has, truth be told).

Michael Booth goes with the winsome tone of a happy-go-lucky, sometimes wise-guy traveler. His topics are odd ones at times. For instance, in Denmark there's a chapter called "Hot Tub Sandwiches," in Iceland, one called "Elves" (yes, m ...more

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Jan 22, 2016 zachary rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: english, cultural, givenaway, humor, nonfiction, sociology, ancientnorse

Michael Booth is a British journalist living in Denmark and he's determined to figure out what makes the Scandinavians so special. What is a myth and what is truth? Is anything true? Is anything a myth? Moore takes it upon himself to solve the mysteries of the North; heading out to an adventure that takes him from offices of politicians to Santa Claus' home in the middle of summer.

As someone who is Scandinavian, this book definitely appealed to me because... well, it's always nice to see how fol Michael Booth is a British journalist living in Denmark and he's determined to figure out what makes the Scandinavians so special. What is a myth and what is truth? Is anything true? Is anything a myth? Moore takes it upon himself to solve the mysteries of the North; heading out to an adventure that takes him from offices of politicians to Santa Claus' home in the middle of summer.

As someone who is Scandinavian, this book definitely appealed to me because... well, it's always nice to see how folks around the world view us. Even though there's a lot of popular stereotypes and a lot of famous brands (IKEA for one) with a Scandinavian origin... nobody seems to know much about Scandinavia. In their defense, I doubt any of them would give good answers if you asked them about West Africa or Southeast Asia either. But as someone born and raised here, curiousity definitely got the better part of me. I had to read this book, I just had to.

Booth's writing is witty and intriguing; it's hard not to like the guy, honestly. He has a lot of interesting views and stories to share but at the same time, I do feel like the book falls quite short. It's more a personal reflective story that doesn't really say much. It would've done just as good as a blog post titled ”This is what I, a Brit in Denmark, think about Norway” and so on. I feel as if it isn't sure wether to be just humor or actually educating – it ends up somewhere inbetween with lots of interesting quotes and facts only to have them lead to no interesting discussions or debates about the matter. I don't mind a balance between humor and education; but this book fails to find that balance.

None the less, it was an interesting read. Especially about the other countries; I compared his experiences a lot with my own. Some alike, some not so much. Reading about Sweden in particular was weird because he brought up a lot of stuff I did know and a lot of stuff I didn't know. It felt kind of weird to find out stereotypes like that. I feel like I'm supposed to know them already. I can't tell if this realisation is positive or negative in terms of being a proper Sweden, but... I had my share of chuckles but it was hardly ever more than that and I found myself struggling through the book more than once, sadly. ...more

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Dec 19, 2015 Sara Sather rated it did not like it

I abandoned this book because it seems the author's point of view was negatively established prior to writing it. Dude doesn't dig the Scandinavian way of life, and that seemed like the thesis statement for the book. If I wanted to read someone's complaints and twisted judgements, I'd find some right wing blog. ...more

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Nov 28, 2015 Mina rated it it was ok

Recommended to Mina by: Euroman.dk

Shelves: humor, sociology, non-fiction, nordic

The narrator is by turns startled, amazed and britishly shocked as he recounts his Mr. Bean-like antics in the Nordic countries. If culture be expressed and passed on through stories, as a journalist, Michael Booth strikes a good balance between analysis and anecdotes. The narrator offers a general, simple (perhaps simplistic) bird's-eye view of Nordic cultures, as well as an accessible take on thorny issues from many perspectives.

Alas, this is how I imagine people felt when they learned there w The narrator is by turns startled, amazed and britishly shocked as he recounts his Mr. Bean-like antics in the Nordic countries. If culture be expressed and passed on through stories, as a journalist, Michael Booth strikes a good balance between analysis and anecdotes. The narrator offers a general, simple (perhaps simplistic) bird's-eye view of Nordic cultures, as well as an accessible take on thorny issues from many perspectives.

Alas, this is how I imagine people felt when they learned there was no Santa Claus. I was a blasé sort of kid back then, but now my childhood is complete. (view spoiler)

If there is one thing that put me off, Sweden is the third country in per capita number of immigrants, consequently, there is a chapter devoted to Swedish feelings and reactions to this issue. The narrator confessed to feeling strongly about this, to the point of leaving the room when such an opponent to immigration appeared on TV. I was very interested to see how it would be addressed and equally dissapointed afterwards. His only conflicting interview, with Swedish Democrat Eric Myrin, was short and drowned out in self-congratulatory pontificating mental monologues as the narrator addressed unemployment, for example, in full Socratic splendor:

'...every year we have had unemployment at 10 per cent.’

‘Which would suggest there is a fixed level of unemployment, irrespective of the level of immigration . . .’

There seemed little point in getting bogged down in statistics – Myrin was hardly likely to have a Damascene epiphany

The unemployment rate is a very fickle position to take a stand on, because it represents those who don't have a job as a percentage of those who want to get a job; it does not include those who, for example, live off welfare and who don't want to look for a job, which might be one of the explanations for the stable unemployment rate.

This is not a rigurous work and I did not expect a rigurous argument, but I would have liked an open approach to conflicting views: levity, not shallowness. ...more

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Feb 11, 2016 Owlseyes marked it as to-read

Shelves: danish, nordic-myth, for-bernie-sanders, for-michael-moore, ain-t-america-better, scandinavian-utopia, swede, norway

“Where to Invade Next” becomes almost giddily optimistic once Mr. Moore visits Norway to investigate that country’s prisons; the maximum sentence is 21 years. Even convicted murderers are housed in the equivalent of small Manhattan studio apartments equipped with televisions and cookware, even sharp utensils. No one is locked in solitary confinement, prisoners have a lot of mobility and the principal punishment is separation from the rest of society."
in:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/mov ...more

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Dec 17, 2018 Chaunceton Bird rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is an entertaining and enlightening journey through the five Nordic nations. As an Englishman, Michael Booth's writing is witty enough to keep one chuckling throughout. This is also filled to the brim with statistics about each nation, and, coupled with the author's personal experiences and interviews conducted in these countries, Mr. Booth's book really covers all the bases. I recommend this to anybody interested in what makes these nations world leaders in everything important. ...more

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Oct 26, 2014 Neil Fox rated it really liked it

The World currently finds itself besotted with all things Nordic - our prime time TV features Danish detectives, we are in awe of Swedish minimalist design, Scandinavian cuisine is all the rage in New York and Educationalists from around the Globe traipse around the Finnish school system on a weekly basis to marvel at and pay homage to what is touted as the World's best. Seemingly we can't get enough of what this previously ignored frigid corner of Northern Europe has to offer.

Michael Booth, a l The World currently finds itself besotted with all things Nordic - our prime time TV features Danish detectives, we are in awe of Swedish minimalist design, Scandinavian cuisine is all the rage in New York and Educationalists from around the Globe traipse around the Finnish school system on a weekly basis to marvel at and pay homage to what is touted as the World's best. Seemingly we can't get enough of what this previously ignored frigid corner of Northern Europe has to offer.

Michael Booth, a longtime resident of Denmark, embarks on a journey with the intent of dissecting what lies beneath the perceptions, separating the myth from reality and trying to understand what really makes the Nordic societies tick. Starting in his adopted Denmark, he makes his way through Iceland, Norway, Finland and finally Sweden, interviewing academics, journalists and social commentators along the way.

The egalitarian nature of society is widely believed to lie behind the high levels of happiness, contentment and social cohesion measured in the Nordic societies, which in turn is held to explain their economic success and high standards of living. Booth asks the question whether all is what it seems and explores the flip side of the coin taking a critical peek at the underbelly of these seemingly perfect societies. He explores why Denmark is regularly voted the "happiest" country on Earth; how the deep flaws of the Icelandic personality led them to financial collapse and National ruin in the Great Recession of 2008; how Norway, although avoiding the " resource curse" typically associated with oil producing countries, nevertheless suffers the distorting effect of its black gold throughout society in many subtle ways. The highest praise is reserved for the Finns, whose resourcefulness and stamina he highly admires, while at the same time he deftly tackles their National hang-up's and taboos on subjects such as the Swedish-speaking minority and the delicate relationship with Russia.

The most virulent commentary is reserved for the Swedes. Echoing Andrew Brown's "Fishing in utopia" , Booth exposes how this wealthy, seemingly modern and progressive society is in fact a benign totalitarian Corporatist nanny state presided over by the Social Democrat machine and a half-witted Monarchy which, with ruthless pragmatism, shamefully betrayed its Nordic neighbors during WW2 and then feasted on the spoils of reconstruction, finally atoning for its guilt by re-inventing itself as a goody goody immigrant-friendly society from the 1960's. But the pressures of that very immigration policy combined with the elements of the Welfare State have brought to the fore the latent Nazi reactionary political element once again. Yes, the neighbors of Sweden will certainly chuckle and revel in Booth's viscous dissection of their tut-tutting big neighbor !

Booth misses out on the chance to explore deeper on how the anthropological and sociological side of things connect with the economical sphere. For example, the fact that the welfare state model is unsustainable in its present, unreformed form, supporting as it does a pensions and dependency time bomb, and being propped up by levels of taxation that are slowly strangling entrepreneurship and innovation, not to mention a slow-burn of productivity. Norwegians today effectively only work a 4-day week, and much of the region shuts down for the entire moth of July, meaning that 8% of annual working time is erased ( more when one considers everyone becomes de-mob happy more than one month before the July shutdown). Now this is fine if you're some dosser sitting in a government job, but crippling for small businesses trying to make ends meet. The corollary of the admirable fairness and equality in society is that the Nordic countries are very much nanny states with a pervasive state sector. The strong sense of social justice is warped when you consider that tax avoidance can carry stiffer jail sentences than murder in some cases in Sweden or that Finland has the quirky law that speeding fines are progressive with income - fine in theory, but why would speeding be a more serious offense if committed by a rich person vrs a poorer one ? Some pundits have applauded the innovativeness of this peculiar rule, but what it conceals in fact is an undercurrent of jealousy and bias against high earners and achievers.

The author also passes up the opportunity to explore in more depth the extent to which uniquely Nordic traits contribute to economic afflictions like high unemployment, and not just to success. I use what I call the "IKEA-Isation" of society to illustrate this. The Nordic psyche contains a strong "do-it-yourself" gene. Inside every Finn lurks a little engineer just waiting to fix things up. Whilst Scandinavians with their long Summer holidays scoff at the Americans with their one-week annual vacations, the Americans actually spend that one week of vacation being on holiday, not toiling to repair or paint the roof on some dilapidated Summer cabin. IKEA could only have arisen from Sweden; no other Nationality could have come up with the concept of transferring the labour from the manufacturer to the consumer. This can also be seen in restaurants for example; the Scandinavian love affair with the buffet style of eating involves an "IKEA" style contract between the customer and the establishment whereby the labour normally performed by a waiter is transferred onto the customer. The effect of all this is that the service economy is underdeveloped and doesn't employ the numbers it could or should. ( not to mention offering up a plausible explanation for the legendary rude service)The 4 weeks Lars spends toiling over that Summer cabin could instead provide a job for an unemployed laborer while Lars takes himself off to the beach with the wife and kids.. But oh no, I must do it myself.

The author does though hit the nail squarely on the head when he asks why do Nordic people put up with such high
levels of taxation when it is increasingly evident that the model is unsustainable and that they are not even getting value
for money in terms of services ? - it is simply because there is a vested interest in maintaining the status quo as the State Sector accounts for such a high percentage of GDP ( > 60% in the case of Finland) - to wish for anything else would be akin to a turkey wishing for Christmas.

Booth, in trying to extract the secrets' of the Nordics' success, allows himself to get bogged down too often in statistics and boring academic musings, sometimes confusing correlation with causation, as he does in a particularly mind-bogglingly irrelevant debate as to whether "trust" came before the welfare state or vice versa; he has the tendency to use statistics in this much as a drunk man uses a lamp post - for support rather than illumination.

Booth, while poking fun at and exposing embarrassing truths about his adoptive homeland of Denmark and its neighbors, nevertheless shows a strong attachment to, and respect and love for the Nordic countries, their people and their way of living and organizing society. He also admirably avoids the stereotyping that typically accompany travel writers' descriptions of Nordic experiences. If anything he underlines that while there is no such thing as a perfect society, you could do a lot worse than take a few learnings from these Nations, imperfect though they may be. ...more

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Jan 28, 2018 Caroline rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: get-smart, did-not-finish, nonfiction, scandinavian

(Full disclosure: book abandoned on page 76 [out of 416 pages].)

Dry. I was expecting an engaging book in the vein of Bill Bryson's work, but Michael Booth is--at least in the first 76 pages--preoccupied with tax issues and finely detailed history of Denmark (the book's first chapter). It reads like a textbook. ...more

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Oct 29, 2015 Amanda rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 04-nonfic, 06-politics, 06-religion, 01-2010s, 04-humor, 00-2015, 06-feminism

Several revellers have climbed on to the tables and are dancing gingerly, but with enthusiasm, arms in the air, silly hats akimbo, their shirts still tucked firmly into their shorts. It is time for me to crawl off to a darkened room.
This is Sweden.
This is so not Sweden.

Let's be honest, this isn't going to be a review. It'll be a long list of my favorites quotes (and, because there needs to be some constructive criticism, I've put that in the end for anyone who's interested). Also, most of th ...more

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Dec 10, 2018 Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: travel, 2-stars, nonfiction, sociology, iceland, sweden, finland, norway, denmark

This is basically the world’s longest magazine article. I kept reading because the author had a great idea for a book: we in the English-speaking world are always idealizing the Nordic countries, but we don’t actually know much about what it’s like to live there, nor do we visit them very often or learn their languages. So the author, a Brit married to a Dane and living in Copenhagen, proposed to travel around these countries and report on, as the bookjacket claims, “how they may not be as happy This is basically the world’s longest magazine article. I kept reading because the author had a great idea for a book: we in the English-speaking world are always idealizing the Nordic countries, but we don’t actually know much about what it’s like to live there, nor do we visit them very often or learn their languages. So the author, a Brit married to a Dane and living in Copenhagen, proposed to travel around these countries and report on, as the bookjacket claims, “how they may not be as happy or as perfect as we assume.”

Which could have been great, if it weren’t so light and frivolous. Aside from giving a brief overview of the history of each of the five countries included (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland), chapters cover topics such as a visit to a sauna; a visit to Santa’s Village; traditionally-dressed revelers celebrating Norwegian Constitution Day; and a visit to a supposedly dangerous housing project occupied by Muslim immigrants in Malmö, which turns out to be pretty quiet and unremarkable when the author visits in the middle of the day and doesn’t actually talk to any immigrants other than the elderly Macedonian who heads the local mosque.

The book does briefly explore various issues – immigration, the rise of right-wing politics, high levels of taxation and government involvement in society, the causes of Iceland’s economic woes – mostly through talking to a small group of writers and professors who give rather fuzzy impressionistic answers. But he never does really get “behind the myth” in the way I expected. After his stroll through the housing project, he observes that its Swedish neighbors, said to resent the immigrants, “probably faced precisely the same problems as their immigrant neighbors in Herregården – poor education, few opportunities, little hope, and no money – yet each was fearful and resentful of the other.”

Wait. Stop the presses. This is it – this is “behind the myth.” Sweden isn’t supposed to have people, especially native-born ethnic Swedes, with “poor education, few opportunities, little hope, and no money.” Isn’t that the entire point of the welfare state? Isn’t that the heart of the “myth”? And yet Booth just keeps tripping blithely along, talking about views on immigration and even including a chapter entitled “Class” that turns out to be all about the weirdness of the Scandinavian monarchies. In another baffling omission, he observes that a Norwegian museum “featur[es] the usual Nordic tiptoeing around the subject of their oppressed indigenous minority,” then proceeds to describe the exhibit, note the Sami’s territory and numbers, and never mention them again. I checked the index just to make sure and yep, this is the only mention in the entire book. How you can think you’re writing a book about a region’s negative aspects and not include its generational poverty or oppressed indigenous minority, I have no idea. But on to Legoland!

The book is very focused on the author’s own experiences and observations, while some of his theories are just wacky. For instance, he theorizes that Finnish men drink too much because their country has a long history of foreign rule and military defeat, never mind that this does not appear to affect modern-day Finns in any way. He even writes about floating this theory to others, who all shoot it down, which doesn’t stop him from devoting a full two pages to defending it in the book.

Now sure, if you are looking for a lighthearted travelogue that will introduce you to a few cultural concepts, and fill you in on a bit of history and politics, this may be the book for you. I didn’t find it as funny as others did, perhaps because it relies heavily on pop culture references that don’t mean anything to me (“Swedish unemployment figures are about as reliable as Joan Collins’s age”). The book is just so long, without achieving any real depth, that at times I considered not even finishing it. I did learn some things from it, but I would have appreciated it more if it had been pared down and marketed as the lighthearted travelogue that it is. ...more

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May 22, 2014 Justin rated it really liked it

I should state off the bat that this won't be an objective review. I know the author and I have done plenty of writing myself about the foibles and fortes of the Danes, my hosts and neighbors for the past four years.

But in The Almost Nearly Perfect People, Michael Booth has written something more comprehensively informative and hilariously opinionated than I could possibly hope to do about my adopted country. If that weren't enough, he did the same for Denmark's four Nordic neighbors: Sweden, N ...more

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Apr 05, 2017 Pink rated it it was ok

Interesting premise, but too long and repetitive in nature to hold my interest until the end.

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Sep 01, 2015 Holly rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2015-reads, audio

I was under no delusion that the Nordic countries were utopias. There's some endemic racism, for example. But it surely can't hurt for us (Americans) to strive to be more like Norway or Finland! The author of this book, a Brit living in Denmark, sets out to dispel those impressions of Scandinavian utopias, but Booth happens to truly and unabashedly love these countries too. So he mixes the myth-busting with fascinatingly detailed discussions of Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden - and ...more

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Nov 01, 2017 Niels Wang-Holm rated it did not like it

What a bunch of crap - it would be funny, if just half of what he wrote was based on some sort of factual evidence. But it seems he is just picking it up from the top of his head as he goes along.
Also, in his writing style he comes of as an arrongant neoliberal conservative, complaining about taxes and equality, wishing that that things were as they are in his home country the UK - so if things are better in the UK, why does he and his family choose to live in Denmark? Maybe because of the welfa ...more

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Oct 16, 2015 Emily Fortuna rated it did not like it

Could not finish this. I was really disappointed with how the author conflated "happiness" and "well being" with outward, public displays of joy. The author conflates these two different things for the effect of entertainment rather than providing an honest representation. ...more

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Jan 11, 2015 Kristen rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2015

Booth's look at the politics and culture of Scandinavia is highly funny and readable. What I found most interesting is how much of what we take for granted as a fact of life is really dependent a nation's culture. In Denmark and Sweden, for example, doing or saying anything that might suggest you are better than someone else in any way is considered incredibly rude. People do not talk about winning awards or how well their kids are doing in school. Booth spends a lot of time talking about this a ...more

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Jan 01, 2017 Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance rated it really liked it

Shelves: travel, nonfiction, health, happiness

The question of everyone's mind these days seems to be: What's so great about Scandinavia? Michael Booth, an Englishman living in Denmark, decides to explore this question and ventures out to Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Denmark and tries to put his finger on what makes the people of these countries so happy. Booth manages to take a close look at the social nets in place, the comprehensive health care systems, the amazing educational systems, and the Scandinavians' perceived happiness a ...more

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Jun 19, 2016 Jo rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, social-history, history, travel

Booth is a Brit married to a Dane and resides in his wife's homeland. Here he decides to explore the myth that Scandinavia and the people who live there are perfect, affluent and happier than the rest of the world. I found this really interesting and I feel like I learned a lot of things too. Would recommend this to anyone interested in the Nordic lands. ...more

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Feb 07, 2014 Bettie rated it did not like it

Shelves: winter-20132014, denmark, history, emperor-s-new-clothes, iceland, finland, radio-4, lifestyles-deathstyles, norway, nonfiction

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NB On sites that allow 1/2 stars this is showing at half a star. ...more

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Nov 10, 2015 Lesley rated it liked it

Shelves: december-2015, library-book, true-stories

funny at times, definitely enlightening and gets all the stereotypes covered!

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Aug 01, 2020 Lena rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, dnf

DNF page 94

It started off amusing and even, then descended into Dane bashing. Everything from the fact that they like flags to their love of cozy evenings can apparently be reduced to racism. Then there was the smugness:
Well, I don't mean to correct a Harvard business school teacher but...
Well, I know you've been studying and writing tax code since the 60s but...
Well, I know you wrote the happiness index but...
Well, I know you define Scandinavian as Denmark, Norway, and Sweden but...
I did not en ...more

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About Michael Booth

Michael Booth

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Michael Booth is an English food and travel writer and journalist who writes regularly for a variety of newspapers and magazines including the Independent on Sunday, Condé Nast Traveller, Monocle and Time Out, among many other publications at home and abroad. He has a wife, Lissen, and two children, Asger and Emil.

In June 2010 Michael Booth won the Guild of Food Writers/Kate Whiteman Award for wor ...more

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“Perhaps Danish happiness is not really happiness at all, but something much more valuable and durable: contentedness, being satisfied with your lot, low-level needs being met, higher expectations being kept in check.” — 11 likes

“One of the keys to happiness, experts tell us, is autonomy in one’s life – the luxury of being able to decide your own destiny and achieve the fulfilment of self-realisation. It is no coincidence that the region that is consistently judged to have the highest levels of well-being and life quality, and the happiest, most fulfilled people, also has the greatest equality of educational opportunity and, according to a London School of Economics study comparing the incomes of fathers and sons over thirty years, among the very highest levels of social mobility in the world. The four main Nordic countries occupied the top four places on the list.” — 5 likes

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