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Iceland: The Warm Country of the North
A superb photographic portrayal of Iceland and it's people, with a thoughtful introduction, photo captions, and a summary of Iceland's natural and cultural history.
- GenresTravelFinnish Literature
143 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 20, 2026
Three or my adult children just returned from a trip to Iceland ostensibly to see the Solar Eclipse--a trip one son began planning two years ago, as it was supposed to be the ideal place to see it!--and it was clear every day except the day of the very day of the Eclipse, but they had already prepared for the possibility of rainy weather, and they had already spent two weeks hiking their way around the country and loving it.
This book is a fairly typical travel souvenir you can get for any country--with gorgeous photographs and useful descriptions and a good framing essay on the history and culture of Iceland (including the fragility of its survival as they face increasing effects of climate change. I love it that one of my sons wrote notes on many of the photos, giving the book as a gift to their grandparents who had once been there. Great trip.
This book is a fairly typical travel souvenir you can get for any country--with gorgeous photographs and useful descriptions and a good framing essay on the history and culture of Iceland (including the fragility of its survival as they face increasing effects of climate change. I love it that one of my sons wrote notes on many of the photos, giving the book as a gift to their grandparents who had once been there. Great trip.
January 22, 2023
Reading and looking through this fine booklet has served as a preparation for a holiday trip to Iceland, maybe 2024; for this year (2023) another nordic country has got more priority. JM
June 2, 2024
Krótki, ale zajmujący przekrój informacji o Islandii okraszony pięknymi zdjęciami z różnych części kraju. Może stanowić impuls do dalszego pogłębiania wiedzy o tym niezwykłym miejscu.
August 16, 2026
I got this in Iceland as a gift for my Grandparents but read it first. It does a really nice job at recapping a lot of the things we did on the trip with some super awesome photos to come with. I'm thinking about writing in it to show all of the different places I have been to in the book and putting in my favorite parts about each place. Although he does write a good amount in the book, my favorite part is obviously the pictures, as they highlight the culture and beauty of Iceland very well. I'd probably give this book a 9/10. :] The museum I found this in was also super awesome. #Icelandbookcool
July 30, 2017
PopSugar Reading Challenge 2017: "Un libro con ilustraciones."
Las fotografías, la información, la textura de las páginas... Lo amé todo.
No recuerdo por qué surgió mi afición hacia Islandia, pero cada vez crece más, y una vez terminado este libro, he decidido que haré todo lo posible por no sólo ir a visitar el país, sino por quedarme a vivir ahí.
Las fotografías, la información, la textura de las páginas... Lo amé todo.
No recuerdo por qué surgió mi afición hacia Islandia, pero cada vez crece más, y una vez terminado este libro, he decidido que haré todo lo posible por no sólo ir a visitar el país, sino por quedarme a vivir ahí.
August 19, 2026
Not much to this really, but very pretty. Pictures with descriptions. The reason I really liked it is because my son wrote notes for each place he’d visited, and it was fun to read those.
January 30, 2021
Iceland, a country I have yet to visit but would definitely like to visit at some point, is a country with a fascinating if somewhat peripheral history to Europe as a whole. Whether one looks at its more recent political troubles, its long legacy of rule by first Norway and then Denmark, which turned a bit too authoritarian during the course of the 1800's, leading to widespread discontent, or one looks back to its origins as a Norse settler colony in the remote reaches of the North Atlantic that managed to survive despite intense isolation, there is a lot about Iceland that is compelling and interesting. This book chooses to look at photography and the striking terrain of the country as being a source of compelling imagery, and in the skilled hands of the author this photography is very impressive, as the stark and remote wilderness of Iceland proves to be the source of a wide variety of beautiful photography of mountains, glaciers, waterfalls, fields of beautiful subarctic austere beauty, and animals like horses. All of this suggests Iceland to be an immensely beautiful place well worth seeing for oneself, which is the goal of all good photography books like this one.
This book is about 150 page or so and it is divided into three parts. The first part provides six contrasts present in Iceland, from its status as an isolated country on the one hand to an entire strange and beautiful world on the other, from it being always change but also always the same, from the land being ungrateful but also generous in other ways, from having a very local but also global literature, being both full of powerful forces like volcanos and the fury of the winter winds but also a place of fragility, as well as being a land of tender indifference. This is followed by the bulk of the book which consists of beautiful photography of the terrain and people of Iceland, which makes this book well worth having as a coffee table work if one has that sort of inclination. The third part of this book gives some facts about Iceland, including statistics, information about geology, erosion, geothermal energy, climate, flora (both plants and lichens), mammals, birds, the history of Iceland, language, economy, political organization, and Iceland's rich tradition of medieval sagas. While this book is by no means the last word on Iceland's land and history, it certainly makes for a good first word that includes a lot of material for the reader to think about.
There is even a sense of the poignant in this book, something which one might not expect. Some of this touch of melancholy comes in the photography of a beautiful but fragile natural bridge that is shown with people walking all over it that later ended up falling between the time of the photograph and the publishing of the book. There are photos of people here that help to show the "small world" phenomenon of people doing many things at once because there are few people in the country. There are even poignant comments, for example, about the volcanic eruption leading to the flooding of a region that had previously been a major agricultural area of Iceland, as well as a talk of Iceland's history, including the death of many of its people during the period of the Little Ice Age some four hundred years or so ago. There is a lot here to remind the reader that life in Iceland is tough, and even with Iceland's beauty there is still a lot of risk and a lot of conditions that need to be overcome when one lives in such a region that is so far from other countries.
This book is about 150 page or so and it is divided into three parts. The first part provides six contrasts present in Iceland, from its status as an isolated country on the one hand to an entire strange and beautiful world on the other, from it being always change but also always the same, from the land being ungrateful but also generous in other ways, from having a very local but also global literature, being both full of powerful forces like volcanos and the fury of the winter winds but also a place of fragility, as well as being a land of tender indifference. This is followed by the bulk of the book which consists of beautiful photography of the terrain and people of Iceland, which makes this book well worth having as a coffee table work if one has that sort of inclination. The third part of this book gives some facts about Iceland, including statistics, information about geology, erosion, geothermal energy, climate, flora (both plants and lichens), mammals, birds, the history of Iceland, language, economy, political organization, and Iceland's rich tradition of medieval sagas. While this book is by no means the last word on Iceland's land and history, it certainly makes for a good first word that includes a lot of material for the reader to think about.
There is even a sense of the poignant in this book, something which one might not expect. Some of this touch of melancholy comes in the photography of a beautiful but fragile natural bridge that is shown with people walking all over it that later ended up falling between the time of the photograph and the publishing of the book. There are photos of people here that help to show the "small world" phenomenon of people doing many things at once because there are few people in the country. There are even poignant comments, for example, about the volcanic eruption leading to the flooding of a region that had previously been a major agricultural area of Iceland, as well as a talk of Iceland's history, including the death of many of its people during the period of the Little Ice Age some four hundred years or so ago. There is a lot here to remind the reader that life in Iceland is tough, and even with Iceland's beauty there is still a lot of risk and a lot of conditions that need to be overcome when one lives in such a region that is so far from other countries.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews