Smilla's Sense of Snow in Around the World

Nov 09, 2019 Sue Kozlowski rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 196-countries, z-196-read-denmark

I read this book as part of my quest to read a book written by an author from each of the 196 countries in the world. The author of this book is from Denmark.

I did not like this book and I forced myself to finish it, mainly to discover the answer to the mystery. This book is originally written in Danish and then translated to English. I think I would have understood it better if I was from Denmark.

The story is about Smilla, who was born on Greenland to an Inuit mother and a Danish father. As you ...more

Like · see review

Dec 02, 2013 Christine marked it as dnf · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, mystery-thriller-suspense, meh, authors-e-to-h, around-the-world-in-80-books, chubby-chunkster, 2014-book-purchases

First Sentence:

"It's freezing-an extraordinary 0° Fahrenheit-and it's snowing, and in the language that is no longer mine, the snow is qanik-big, almost weightless crystals falling in clumps and covering the ground with a layer of pulverized white frost." ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jan 09, 2012 Maude rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, children, antarctica, maude-s-bookshelf, denmark

This was an interesting book about a woman who is part Inuit, living in Copenhagen. When her six-year-old Inuit neighbor, Isaiah, falls off a roof, Smilla doesn't believe it is an accident and follows up with her investigation into the world of a pathologist, a shipping magnate and into the secret files of the Danish company responsible for extracting most of Greenland's mineral wealth. She subsequently, gets on the ship which is bound for a mysterious mission to an island off of Greenland. Murd ...more

Like · see review

Jan 06, 2012 Amanda rated it it was ok

Shelves: north-america, crime, europe, around-the-world-challenge, denmark

I know this book was written in the 1990s, but it reminds me so much of the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series. Dense, very intricate discussions of government and the main focus of the novel -- the amount of geologic terms and scientific jargon was daunting even for me, who has a bit of geology background. It took me so long to get through it and the resolve wasn't even that interesting, unlike GWDT. I think the movie version would probably be a better bet than this sludge of a book. ...more

Like · see review