Status Updates From A Parish Chronicle

The woman said that of course a person must be thankful for being allowed to hold on to the breath of life; but one was also thankful for being able to get rid of it. "My great-grandmother had an enormously hard time dying," she said. "In the end they had to turn a pot over her head."

"The sickbed has been one of the most important social institutions in Iceland since the country was settled."

Very few writers can pen insightful, biting and funny social commentary like Laxness.