Land of Love and Ruins

by Oddný Eir, Philip Roughton (Translation)

In the wake of Iceland’s financial crisis, a young author, recently separated and feeling out the uncertain terrain of a new relationship, finds herself questioning the foundations of our love and family lives, our bonds to country and the earth. Stirred by a dream about an old Viking woman on a pilgrimage, she sets out on a quest to the the ruins of the homes of her ancestors, where they tried to live in harmony with nature and each other. Her guiding questions are as essential as their answers are elusive: How do we create a home for love? How can we nourish personal space while sustaining intimacy and desire with a partner? How can we go, not back, but forward to nature?

Drawn both to her archaeologist brother and her ornithologist lover, she explores alternate forms that those relationships might take. Her search brings her all over Iceland and abroad to Paris, Strasbourg, Basel, and the Lake District home of famous Romantic siblings Dorothy and William Wordsworth. Written in the form of a diary that pans from small details to big questions and weaves elements of philosophy, history, archaeology, ecology, eroticism, and literature into a beautifully patterned whole, Oddný Eir invents a new, intimate language between writer and reader in this enchanting book about being human in the modern world. 

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Travel, Womens, 21st Century, Novels, Nature

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Oddný Eir (1972) is an Icelandic author whose novel Land of Love and Ruins won the EU Prize for Literature and the Icelandic Women’s Literature Prize. In addition to publishing four novels and several books of poetry and essays, she has worked in the art world as a lecturer and gallerist, has received a grant to study archives and museums in Iceland, has been an environmental activist, and has collaborated with the musical artist Björk in composing lyrics for her albums Biophilia and Vulnicura. She has received advanced degrees in political philosophy from the University of Iceland and The Sorbonne. Oddný Eir lives in the Icelandic countryside, by the glacier Eyjafjallajökull.

Reviews

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I subscribed to Restless Books this year, I also got to add a title from the backlist. I was circling between the Cuban science fiction titles and this one, and ultimately chose the Icelandic title.

It isn't often a novel is blurbed by Bjork, and I guess the author has written songs with her, and both are involved in environmental activism that will not be a surprise to anyone who has read this book.

Apparently Eir is known for her autobiographical fiction, but this is the first of her novels to be translated into English (more please!) This is written as diary entries covering a whole host of topics from Iceland after the economic crisis - belonging, home, love, land ownership, natural resources, the spirit of places, siblings, hermits, etc. It doesn't hurt that the author of the entries and other characters in the novel are always reading from the sagas, which seems to be a thread throughout all modern Icelandic lit, that these stories still permeate, still matter, still form their thinking.

Add to that memorable characters and descriptions of astounding places around the country I've always wanted to visit! A deep but short read (I read it in one sitting.)

[fióka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eir pertuban van Izlanddal. Barátok, családtagok, együtt élnek. Azt nem tudni, hogy Izland mennyit tud Eirről, de az egyértelmű, hogy Eir rengeteget tud Izlandról. Mesék, regék, dalok, történetek, történelem, annyira bizalmas, közeli viszonyban van a szigetével, hogy az eszméletlen. Picit olyan mint valami regös, akit régmúlt korok felejtettek a jelenben. Amíg végigmeséli a naplóformában megírt regényét, addig róla is sokat megtudunk. Például azt, hogy milyen óvatosan, szinte tapogatózva vág bele egy új kapcsolatba. Vagy azt, hogy milyen együtt élni felnőttként a testvérével. Azt is, ami jórészt a jóléti országokban élők privilégiuma: ha úgy tetszik, hetekre-hónapokra átrándulhat egy másik országba az ember, csak úgy, mert tetszik és mert miért is ne. Az már csak hab az élvezetek tortáján, hogy körbelakja a szigetet - ez is a szabadság egyik formája. Az már távol áll tőlem, hogy a tradicionális életforma iránti rajongását teljes mértékben át tudjam érezni vagy rám törjön a kommunában élhetnék utáni vágy, de ennek ellenére a könyve élvezetes kalandozás Eir világában. Patat Bence fordítása és kimerítő lábjegyzetei egyértelműen hozzájárulnak ehhez.

[Vaiva · Rating 2 out of 5]

Labai intymus ir asmeniškas romanas, kuris arba tinka, arba tu jo nesupranti. Ir tikrai ne todėl, kad būtų blogai parašytas ir dar prastai išverstas, bet todėl, kad tiesiog šiuo metu tau jis netiko. Taip, apie Islandiją iš pasakojimo galima daug sužinoti (jeigu pavyks, visų pirma, teisingai ištarti ar perskaityti tiek pavardes, tiek vietovių pavadinimus, o paskui juos dar ir įsiminti), bet asmeninės kelionės, to paties virsmo, man apčiuopti nepavyko.

[Magdelanye · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can't enter another persons world too quickly, you've got to sift through....p14

This is certainly true for this rather dreamy meandering meditation on home and nation and how to be in the world.This left me rather lost at times, the placemarkers being mostly in Icelandic; Neither was I that familiar with its legends and landmarks, nor the present economic situation. Even the relationships, disguised by code names, seemed mysterious in the moody fog of description.

Still, it was a pleasant journey

A keen observer learns things that cannot be learned in any other way. To those who know how to watch and listen, nature willingly opens all it's doors.
quoted on p212 from Sonata of the Sea by Gunnar

[Tinna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it, and probably will read chapters from it again and again. Beautiful. Lots of thoughts that I share and just wish I had found such great words to describe.

[Lucía B. García · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me ha gustado, pero se puede hacer pesada si se lee de un tirón. Mejor poco a poco. Mezcla el género epistolar con una novela de viajes tipo road movie.

[Asta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Knygos nugarėlėje parašyta:
"Pasak literatūros kritikų, "Virsmas" - tai sielos aprašymas, filosofinis pokalbis, ypatinga kelionė, žadanti atsinaujinimą."
Už šią knygą rašytoja apdovanota daugybe visokių literatūrinių premijų.

Man "Virsmas" į akiratį pakliuvo tik todėl, kad norėjau perskaityti islandų autorių knygų.
Skaitėsi lėtai - po porą trumpų skyrelių per dieną. Toli gražu ne iš tų knygų, kurios įtraukia ir nepaleidžia.

Net nežinau, kam rekomenduočiau.

Kas patiko - Islandijos istorijos, kultūros, geografijos ir pan. fragmentai. Dar - dienoraščio įrašai iš kitų Europos vietų, kuriose teko ilgiau ar trumpiau pabuvoti - Paryžius, Anglijos "Lake District" (Ežerų kraštas - nacionalinis parkas), Manchester, London.

Pora citatų:
"Žinoma, nereikia būti žemės, kurioje esi apsistojęs, savininku. Visoje šalyje ir visame pasaulyje yra tiek daug gražių namų, kuriuose galima apsistoti <...>"

" "Turėtum įkurti muziejų", - pasakė mano mažasis sūnėnas, atėjęs į mano chaosą. Kiekvienas namas yra tam tikras muziejus. Žmonės išrikiuoja aplink save daiktus, kurie nori, kad jiems primintų apie gyvenimą, kurį jei kažkada troško gyventi."

[Elianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mooi. Interessante gedachtes, maar ze worden niet altijd helemaal uitgewerkt. Daardoor voelt het boek op sommige punten al ietwat gedateerd — heb je gezien hoe IJsland er 12 jaar ja de crash bij ligt?
Jammer dat er geen landkaartje bij zit.

[Jessie (Zombie_likes_cake) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes dnf-ing is very easy for me, and I'm glad that I have cultivated it more into my reading. I mean why read books you don't enjoy? Even if you try to learn something from said book: there is a different book out there that can teach you that if this one doesn't work for you. But sometimes dnf-ing comes hard when it seems if I just read a bit more, get bit more into the style and the story it all will fall into place and I will get it. That was the case with "Land of Love and Ruins". From the beginning on we didn't see eye to eye but it felt that I just needed to get into the rhythm of this meandering, weird little book and it would all make sense and be wonderful. Well, it wasn't. I pushed through and my feeling pretty much remained unchanged all the way through, only the feeling of hope that I would learn to love it slowly dissipating.

I also seem to have this history with Icelandic literature that either I am all over it and deeply in love or I don't understand it in the slightest. Well, this is clearly the latter. Though to say "I didn't understand it in the slightest" is a bit harsh for this one but boy is this a weird one. Written in diary entries that are not titled by date but by place (which is helpful) and day as in "Feast of St. Lucy" or "Autumnal Equinox" or "Start of Winter Fishing Season" (so sometimes helpful, sometimes just quirky because I really wasn't about googling each of these days). There is not really a plot, we just follow the protagonist's thoughts in each entry while she travels and moves around (Iceland, France, UK). There are reflections on Iceland's financial crisis, nature conservancy, home and belonging, family, relationships, literature. Her brother is an archeologist and her boyfriend a ornithologist and both characters and their professions pop up in various forms. It is also very much an autofictional story, very much inspired by/ taken from/ representing the author herself.

But what does it all mean? Do all these musings come together into a satisfying whole? Clearly for some readers but not for this one. Yes, I liked a singular moment or observation here and there, the travel aspect was nice and especially some of the thoughts on home resonated with me. But overall I felt like I was following the author through personal notes trying to make sense of a few things and I am really not sure she manages to do so by the end, and I am very sure I didn't either. What is up with referring to people around her by bird names? Her intensely close relationship with her brother gets some strange undertones. There is her obsession with her namesakes. The diary entries often come of disjointed and with the lack of plot it was hard to follow where she was in her thoughts when I had to put the book down, and while short you have to put this down once in a while.

Yeah, really not for me but like I said in the beginning it consistently felt as if I only had to get properly into it and I would connect. Suffice to say I never truly did.

[Dirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

As long as a reader remembers that Land of Love and Ruins is a collection of diary entries--ruminations of a day or moment, as opposed to beginning-middle-and-end narrative--there are many pleasures to be had in this quirky, conversational offering.

[Eva Lavrikova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kniha, ktorú si budem musieť prečítať znova. O hľadaní a pocite domova. O koreňoch, ruinách, nachádzaní. O hraniciach seba samého vo vzťahu k iným. Krásna kniha.

[Restless Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Peripatetic and reflective, bookish and quietly beguiling, the narrator of Land of Love and Ruins has clear antecedents in the W.G. Sebald of The Rings of Saturn and Teju Cole’s Julius in Open City. If her solitude is less reticent, less chastened than theirs, this is likely because she has not been driven by oblique trauma to protective self-erasure. She seeks connection with others and is honest about her desires, even as she worries about the emotional and intellectual costs of compromising her autonomy in order to fulfill them…. In this way, Land of Love and Ruins is less an extension of Sebald’s line than of recent path-breaking, genre-porous narratives such as Eileen Myles’ Inferno, Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation, Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts and Lynne Tillman’s Someday This Will Be Funny…. Questions about what makes a family, what constitutes a partnership, and how the need to love and be loved conflicts with the need to be your own person, become questions about what makes a country, what constitutes sustainability, and what happens when growth and consumption exceed the limits of what the earth can bear…. Land of Love and Ruins is an extraordinary novel. I can’t remember the last time I read a book at once so understated yet unrestrained.”

—Justin Taylor, Los Angeles Times

“Oddný Eir is an authentic author, philosopher, and mystic. She weaves together diaries and fiction. She is the writer I feel can best express the female psyche of now.... A true pioneer!!!!!!!!”

—Björk

“Winner of the EU Prize for Literature, this meditative novel by Icelandic shooting star Eir (she’s collaborated with Björk) features a nameless young narrator home again after a break up and launching a spiritual quest. She seeks peace and solitude in nature, visiting Iceland’s meadows and lava fields with a tentative new ornithologist boyfriend who for a time goes to live in a cave. But she’s also deeply sociable, sharing many homey moments with family, particularly her archaeologist brother, and traveling to Basel, Paris, and more in search of sustaining interactions with art and artists. In fact, the narrator herself is a writer deeply imbued with Iceland’s language and literary traditions. Without ever sounding like a screed, the book considers how we manage intimacy and live in a world rife with social and economic injustice. VERDICT: Reading this lyrically, sometimes even deliciously written work is almost as good as going on one’s own spiritual quest; it will have great appeal to any reader beyond thrill-seeking, shoot-’em-up fans.”

—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal, starred review

"[In Land of Love and Ruins] passages sometimes verge on the poetic, and a beautiful, satisfying insight can often be its own reward, no matter what it contributes to the broader narrative…. Land of Love and Ruin is a rewarding, if deeply reflexive little book. It pokes and prods at philosophy and sociology, but never excessively, always couching them in a framework of feeling and everyday life. The diary mode is again a useful vehicle for bringing together such varied directions: the narrator’s musings range from Icelandic sagas to Greek mythology; from Confucianism to Hannah Arendt…. Land of Love and Ruins is a meditation on the present condition, on how our fragmented emotional selves correspond to our fragmented economies, on how progressive-minded, socialist and feminist selves can still find solace in old traditions and familial histories.... There are no conclusions to be found in such a work, which borders the poetic and prose, memory and fiction. The pleasure here is to be found in the journey."

—Hans Rollman, PopMatters

[Sorgens Dag · Rating 4 out of 5]

La belleza de la literatura nórdica y las expresiones sentimentales tan claras de sus autoras son indiscutibles. Tierra de amor y ruinas es un libro diario de viaje y una suerte de antropología filosófica del como se vive una relación con los hermanos y los compañeros amorosos. Si tienes a un hombre amado en tu vida que sabes que te ama también, es el libro que deberías leer, sorpresa, en estos días y época Oddný Eir lo hizo, escribió un breve tratado de que se siente sentir un profundo amor horizontal, limpio y claro por los hombres evadiendo las trampas de la heternormatividad, sin dejar de lado las reflexiones críticas de la autora acerca de cómo percibe el mundo desde ella para ella misma y con relación a ellos.

El libro escurre la sensación de una libertad amorosa y ecológica que pocas veces he tenido oportunidad de leer, al igual que los paisajes que describe, la sensación de armonía y naturalidad invaden toda la obra, incluso en los momentos cuando Eir siente miedo o duda, pareciera que el estado de claridad mental al que ha llegado lo supera todo, autora y territorio se asumen como lo mismo, los habitantes son ellos y ellos por una vez están felices de estar ahí.

Eir escribió este libro en medio de la crisis económica de Islandia más o menos por 2008, si bien se nota que sus preocupaciones existencialistas le permiten reflexiones en un ambiente holgado y cómodo, es en el mensaje general de la importancia de saber quien se es y a quienes puedes amar de verdad, sin vergüenza, en dónde la narración se libra de ser un montón de memorias de una mujer privilegiada que puede irse a otro país a seguir reflexionando, hay más, hay una observación cuidadosa de la naturaleza de los territorios que puede visitar a lo largo del relato y en lo que compone sus propias relaciones con su hermano y amante, dos hombres que destaca no tienen sorpresas, son previsibles porque son confiables, son amorosos también.

Hay una relación en el fondo de la historia con el respeto por la tierra que podría entenderse como un respeto por las mujeres, en Tierra de amor y ruinas una puede plantearse al menos por un momento el nivel de intimidad y terneza que podría alcanzar la vida de una mujer existiendo en comunión con los hombres que la acompañan. La paz entre los desiguales.

[Kathleen Gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to give this stars or comment on the plot because there really isn't one. Read the blurb closely before choosing this- it is more philosophical than character driven and there certainly is some sort of new language. I tried really hard because I have been to Iceland and have read other Icelandic literature but I just found this really hard. Thanks to edelweiss for the ARC. You will like this if you are open to new types of literature and are familiar with the quirks of a translated book.

[Juanita Buitrago · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took me WAY too long to read. Some powerful sentences in here but I found myself constantly looking for something to sink my teeth into.

[Erla Diljá]

yndisleg! frábær!

bókin minnist á uppáhalds útilegumanninn, konuna mína! Fjalla-Gunnsu. Stórsniðug saga sem ég sagði öllum gestum frá í Hvannalindum (stundum yfir nýbökuðum pönnukökum en oftast á lifskurninni, hjá klukkublómunum)

þetta er svona bók sem ég væri til í að lesa aftur - með annars konar athygli.

um herðubreið: "en á unglingsaldrinum gerði ég uppreisn gegn því sjónarhorni og fannst hún fallegust úr Möðrudal, ósymmetrísk eins og nýútsprungið brjóst." sjálfri finnst mér hún fallegust úr herðubreiðarlindum en symmetrískust úr hinum lindunum.

[Dlmrose · Rating 3 out of 5]

3+

[Els · Rating 3 out of 5]

Land van liefde en ruïnes van Oddny Eir

Dit boek is een eerlijk, spontaan, ongeremd verslag van de omzwervingen die de net gescheiden Oddny maakt door IJsland. Aan de hand van dagboeknotities neemt zij ons dieper mee in haar wereld, letterlijk en figuurlijk.

Elke aantekening begint met een datering aan de hand van feestdagen en natuurfenomenen (maanstanden, verjaardagen van heiligen,…), wat maakt dat je je nog beter kan inleven in het leven van Oddny en in het leven in IJsland. Maar wat ook maakt dat het soms moeilijk te volgen is (waar zijn we en wanneer en met wie?).

Het ene fragment is al intiemer dan het andere. Soms is het een dagboekfragment dat van jou of mij had kunnen zijn (als we in IJsland zouden wonen), soms is het een soort van filosofisch essay. Het mooie is dat Oddny haar persoonlijke leven in verhouding zet tot hét leven, als in de natuur en de wereld an sich. Het kleine in verhouding tot het grote.

Persoonlijk las ik liever het dagboekachtige De Uitweer van Amy Liptrot maar dit boek past wel wat in dezelfde stroming zowel qua geografische situering en qua filosofische toon. Liptrot en Eir zijn beide sterke vrouwen die geen schrik hebben om eerlijk naar zichzelf te kijken en hun bevindingen ongecensureerd met ons te delen. Moedig!

Ik heb zin om zelf naar IJsland te gaan en mij te laten betoveren door de natuur daar.

[romantikker · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a truly fresh read that I have never experienced before. I must be honest and say that themes like environment, sustainability, care for the earth and the nature and the likes were never my things. I have been an avid supporter of the modern way of living and a lover of city life throughout my life. I got more into those issues recently as things such as climate change and the destruction of ecosystem constantly emerge on the news headlines these days, but I guess I still did not have enough heart to truly care about those - my interest and concern on those issues were staying on a fairly theoretical and intellectual level.
This book, however, taught me how to genuinely care about all these issues surrounding the nature and land and sea and resources and sustainability and living with others in harmony. I must sound very cheesy at this point, but the book is far from being cheesy or overly sentimental. The book is all about living the life of an intense thinker, a thinker who never stops caring about the connection we humans have to the earth, to history, to culture, to other human beings surrounding them, to other human beings that lived long before and that will come long after, to the society and politics, to what makes us human in the first place, to what makes our lives precious and beautiful in the end.

[Patricia Herlevi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm enjoying this literary fiction set in Iceland and England. The author Oddny Eir is new to me. She structures her novel in the shape of a travel diary. However, she's not on an action-adventure, but more or less, contemplating the environmental fate of Iceland and other Nordic countries or reflecting on icons of her country's past.

It has been a slower read for me because of the numerous details in each chapter. Don't be fooled by the thinness of the novel. It is equivalent to one of those art films by old-time French directors where a camera lens lovingly travels over a face for ten minutes. Anyway, there is a lot here for your soul to drink in.

[Anneke Alnatour · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, there might not really be a story here, but nevertheless, it was a very enjoyable read for me. I really liked the autobiographical element; I really felt like was given a window on a life of someone I really felt I was getting to know well. A rather nice person, and not so very unlike me, and I had a strong feeling of friend-potential, which is quite rare in novels.

And yes, would love to read more about my "new friend" Oddny! Though it might remain a rather one sided relationship I guess.

[Karol Coopman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Esta novela llamó mi atención pues nunca antes había leído a una autora de Islandia. La narradora nos muestra sus emociones y pensamientos sobre su pareja, hermano, familia y medio ambiente, a través de un relato intimista escrito como diario. Me pareció una propuesta interesante, pero me faltó profundidad; tal vez hubo interés en tocar demasiados temas en pocas páginas. Sigo sintiendo curiosidad por la narrativa de Islandia, esta novela no fue más que una pincelada, algo dispersa.

[Cristin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Could not get past the first fifty pages.

Rambling and no organizing of thoughts at all.

Different geographical places every two pages. It was a mess. Sorry.

[Terry Wrong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whoever tried it knows that leading a diary is not an easy commitment. It needs to be heavily edited to narrate anything except the subsequent unfolding of dates and glimpses into events or personality.
Author uses two peculiarities: the time is referenced through an icelandic calendar heavily framed equaily, it seems, in christian and pagan, agriculture and livestock yearly milestones; and people are introduced as animal invocations, almost totem like representation of one important personal trait which is used to identify them as the journal progresses.
The former gives a structure to follow, the latter, personally at least, makes it somewhat confusing to track and significantly harder to relate to, despite authors obvious attachment to the personas and their narratives which she uses to wave her own.
There is no concept to the time frame, neither of structure elements sets a beginning or an end. It almost has no structure. It is just a slice of time-space of one individual. A remarkable and quirky individual though. One with a beautiful sensibility and very feminine thoughts on heritage, land and people.
People tied to the land give such profound thoughts on structures, relations and moral through their personal narratives and is it not interesting how all of the thoughts all around the world echo the same message?
We need windows overlooking the sea or the mountain, as we wish to divide the windows we have according to where they are oriented to, and we need to meditate on how those are related to everything else, everyone else, all. Thus the journal turned into book wears a name that is twofold, back and forward.

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eir presents a lovely series of vignettes which reflects on her personal experiences and thoughts on womanhood, utilising her homeland setting of Iceland. The way the author ties in ideas of the uncertainty of environmental and cultural change with the unpredictability of love and relationships allows her to develop herself as a metaphor of female experience through the Icelandic environment. This is most poignantly shown in the ways she describes her two main male characters, the ornithologist lover and the archaeologist brother, both intimately involved with the landscape in which they interact with. The strong themes of women as the landscape and men interacting with, controlling, or changing this landscape comes through nicely. A line best displaying this: "I must have fallen asleep in the grave, and some dirt crumbled onto me. I woke up feeling like I was suffocating. But they hurried to me, the ornithologists and archaeologists. Dug me up like an old woman... I cleared the dirt from my nose and mouth and sat in the ornithologist's lap as they designed the future."

[Evelyne · Rating 4 out of 5]

De IJslandse Marie Kessels! Eir is iets meer on topic misschien. Poëtische dagboeknotities over de liefde maar de politiek kan haar niet ontsnappen. Tussen overpeinzingen over liefde en familie, de zegen-vloek een “dominante vrouw” te zijn, gaat het over de wederopbouw van IJsland na de crisis, hoe om te gaan met natuurlijke hulpbronnen. Ben je een nationalist als je tegen de verkoop van grote stukken land aan buitenlandse mogendheden bent? Het kabbelende van haar schrijven wordt me soms iets te veel, net als het krampachtige verwijzen naar personages met dierennamen. Uil en Vogel heb ik door, maar de eilanduil en de sneeuwuil kan ik niet altijd uit elkaar houden (een van de twee is zij zelf). Een bijeenkomst van slimme mensen die nadenken over de toekomst van het land, een “uilenbijeenkomst” te noemen, kan ik niet helemaal serieus nemen.
Tip: het leukst is dit als reisgids en met de gids ernaast. Alle plekken opzoeken die ze op pelgrimstocht langs haar familiegeschiedenis aandoet.

[San Diego Book Review · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewed by DM O'Connor for San Diego Book Review

If you have ever yearned to go to Iceland, or even better, inside the insightful mind of one of Iceland’s greatest writers, then Land of Love and Ruins by Oddny Eir is just the ticket. Part memoir, part diary, part dream-log, part travel guide, Eir travels Iceland (and England and France) after years abroad in search of a sense of home, a sense of peace and calm. The terrain Eir covered is full of family and national history, meditations on Iceland’s recession and socio-politics, archaeology and ornithology, sex and relationships, farming and food, cohabitation and tourism, writing and productivity.

You can read this entire review and others like it at San Diego Book Review.

[Naomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I attended a talk at the Edinburgh Book Festival in the summer with Oddny - I'd never read her book before the event, but picked it up afterwards as she came across so well.
She signed it for me, and what a warm, kind, generous person she seemed to be.
The book came home and joined the rather large pile by the side of my bed. Until yesterday. I read this book in 2 days, but I will go back to it again and again.
It is part diary, part musing on environmentalism, nationalism, love and relationships. It resonated with me completely and Oddny who I met in Edinburgh is very clearly present in the words.
Some phrases and passages were so beautiful, so thought provoking - I will have to reread to have them wash over me again.

[Sanja_Sanjalica · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the title suggests, it's all about looking for peace in a spot of land, but also about inner struggle, relationships, family and memories, legacy (both in nature and family) and constant search for that abovementioned peace within oneself, with others and in the beautiful and complicated landscape of Iceland. A calm style in a form of random diary entries, love the titles related to different holidays and saint days. The translation is a bit inconsiatent at times (sometimes translating Icelandic words, sometimes not, sometimes giving you info in a footnote, other times nothing). Otherwise, a great book to read in peace somewhere.

[Leif · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fitting read for travel, this. It's light enough to drift with, and helpfully split into compact units easy to pick up and put down again. Oddný Eir records her life and, as she does so, compiles a record of relationships between friends, lovers, family members, places, houses, homes, and the many products of the land.

Addmittedly, while this book has rough beginnings and ends, and while its initial leap into love and concluding death are positioned with narrative acuity, it is on the whole a meandering stream rather than a direct canal.

I'd advise others to hear the book like a warm friend more than they might expect a plot-driven novel. Sink in. Get cozy. Listen.