Letters from Iceland and Other Essays PDF Download

Author: W. H. Auden
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780571283521
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
When Auden and MacNeice travelled in Iceland together in 1936, the verse, prose, letters and notes they recorded would appear the following year as 'Letters from Iceland'.

Author: Simon Armitage
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780571175390
Category : English literature
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Two of the brightest young poets of our day follow in the footsteps of W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice. Auden and MacNeice's Letters from Iceland was more than a brilliant and unconventional travel book; it was one of the great works of the 1930s which defined for its own and later generations the precise nature and feeling of that troubled time.With characteristic boldness, Simon Armitage and Glyn Maxwell, staunch admirers of the two older poets, set off in 1994 to discover what Iceland, with its unique geography and ancient political institutions, might have to say to us now. Their findings, delivered in an appropriate mixture of poetry and prose, reportage and imaginative elaboration, vividly reflect the concerns of our own age, and will instruct and amuse readers in equal measure.

Author: Ólafur Egilsson
Publisher: Catholic University of America Press + ORM
ISBN: 0813228700
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
A seventeenth-century minister tells his story of abduction by pirates, and a solo journey from Algiers to Copenhagen, in this remarkable historical text. In summer 1627, Barbary corsairs raided Iceland, killing dozens and abducting almost four hundred people to sell into slavery in Algiers. Among those taken was Lutheran minister Olafur Egilsson. Reverend Olafur—born in the same year as William Shakespeare and Galileo Galilei—wrote The Travels to chronicle his experiences both as a captive and as a traveler across Europe as he journeyed alone from Algiers to Copenhagen in an attempt to raise funds to ransom the Icelandic captives that remained behind. He was a keen observer, and the narrative is filled with a wealth of detail―social, political, economic, religious―about both the Maghreb and Europe. It is also a moving story on the human level: We witness a man enduring great personal tragedy and struggling to reconcile such calamity with his understanding of God. The Travels is the first-ever English translation of the Icelandic text. Until now, the corsair raid on Iceland has remained largely unknown in the English-speaking world. To give a clearer sense of the extraordinary events connected with that raid, this edition of The Travels includes not only Reverend Olafur’s first-person narrative but also a collection of contemporary letters describing both the events of the raid itself and the conditions under which the enslaved Icelanders lived. Also included are appendices containing background information on the cities of Algiers and Salé in the seventeenth century, on Iceland in the seventeenth century, on the manuscripts accessed for the translation, and on the book’s early modern European context.

Author: Eliza Reid
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982174048
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
The Canadian first lady of Iceland pens a book about why this tiny nation is leading the charge in gender equality, in the vein of The Moment of Lift. Iceland is the best place on earth to be a woman—but why? For the past twelve years, the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report has ranked Iceland number one on its list of countries closing the gap in equality between men and women. What is it about Iceland that enables its society to make such meaningful progress in this ongoing battle, from electing the world’s first female president to passing legislation specifically designed to help even the playing field at work and at home? The answer is found in the country’s sprakkar, an ancient Icelandic word meaning extraordinary or outstanding women. Eliza Reid—Canadian born and raised, and now first lady of Iceland—examines her adopted homeland’s attitude toward women: the deep-seated cultural sense of fairness, the influence of current and historical role models, and, crucially, the areas where Iceland still has room for improvement. Throughout, she interviews dozens of sprakkar to tell their inspirational stories, and expertly weaves in her own experiences as an immigrant from small-town Canada. The result is an illuminating discussion of what it means to move through the world as a woman and how the rules of society play more of a role in who we view as equal than we may understand. What makes many women’s experiences there so positive? And what can we learn about fairness to benefit our society? Like influential and progressive first ladies Eleanor Roosevelt, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Michelle Obama, Reid uses her platform to bring the best of her nation to the world. Secrets of the Sprakkar is a powerful and atmospheric portrait of a tiny country that could lead the way forward for us all.

Author: Hannah Kent
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316243906
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution. Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution. Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tv=ti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard. Riveting and rich with lyricism, Burial Rites evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?

Author: Louis MacNeice
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780571177769
Category : English literature
Languages : en
Pages : 83

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Book Description
Written between August and December 1938, this poem is a record of MacNeice's emotional and intellectual experience during those months. The trivia of everyday living is set against events in the world outside - the settlement in Munich and slow defeat in Spain.

Author: Gísli Matt
Publisher: Phaidon Press
ISBN: 9781838663117
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
The debut from rising star chef Gísli Matt of Slippurinn, the international destination restaurant in Iceland's Westman Islands Chef Gísli Matt built Slippurinn with his family in a historic shipyard building of a small town whose landscape was changed forever by the lava flow from a 1973 erupted volcano. In this most incredible environment, where plants grow on mountains created out of lava, Matt created a menu that both respects the local and traditional and pushes boundaries of contemporary cuisine. His first book takes the reader right to the heart of Matt's fascinating culinary world and island life.

Author: William Gershom Collingwood
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780954674014
Category : Iceland
Languages : en
Pages : 149

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Book Description
W.G. Collingwood was an artist, author, antiquarian, and notable scholar of Norse history, literature and language. For 12 weeks in 1897, he sailed to Iceland and travelled by pony round the saga-sites of Iceland with his friend Jon Stefansson, and Icelandic scholar. He wrote long, detailed and entertaining letters home to his wife and children about their adventures and experiences while, incredibly, making some 300 sketches and watercolours. This book brings together his letters, drawings, paintings and photos."

Author: Bergsveinn Birgisson
Publisher: AmazonCrossing
ISBN: 9781612187174
Category : Iceland
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Bjarni has long held on to a letter from former lover Helga, with whom he shared an illicit, impassioned love. Her letter invited him to leave his wife and his farm and pursue prosperity in the city, where World War II had brought an influx of American marines and opportunities for work. But he chose not to reply. Years later, as he reflects on a long and simple life among the sheep in the Icelandic hillsides, he finally finds himself ready to explain why"--P. [4] of cover.

Author: David Boucher
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description