Why am I passionate about this?

In 2009, when I decided to set a crime series in Iceland, I embarked on a decade of research into the country, its people, its literature, its culture, and its elves. I visited the country, I spoke to its inhabitants and I read books, lots of books ā€“ I couldnā€™t find an elf, but I was told where they live. I needed to understand its criminals, its victims, its police, and most of all my detective Magnus Jonson. These are the best books that helped me get to grips with Iceland.


I wrote

Where the Shadows Lie

By Michael Ridpath,

Book cover of Where the Shadows Lie

What is my book about?

One thousand years ago: An Icelandic warrior returns from battle, bearing a ring cut from the right hand of hisā€¦

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Vinland Sagas

Michael Ridpath Why did I love this book?

I love the sagas. They are stories first told a thousand years ago about the Norse settlers in Iceland. They are crisp, subtle, exciting with some excellent characters, especially the women. My favourites are the two Vinland Sagas, which describe the discovery of Greenland and then North America (Vinland) by Erik the Red and his family. This includes the wonderful Gudrid, who was born in Iceland, got married in Greenland, gave birth to a child called Snorri in Vinland, and then went on a pilgrimage to Rome. All in about 1000 AD! 

By Unknown, Keneva Kunz (translator),

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked The Vinland Sagas as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?



The Saga of the Greenlanders and Eirik the Red's Saga contain the first ever descriptions of North America, a bountiful land of grapes and vines, discovered by Vikings five centuries before Christopher Columbus. Written down in the early thirteenth century, they recount the Icelandic settlement of Greenland by Eirik the Red, the chance discovery by seafaring adventurers of a mysterious new land, and Eirik's son Leif the Lucky's perilous voyages to explore it. Wrecked by storms, stricken by disease and plagued by navigational mishaps, some survived the North Atlantic to pass down this compelling tale of the first Europeans toā€¦


Book cover of The Little Book of the Icelanders: 50 Miniature Essays on the Quirks and Foibles of the Icelandic People

Michael Ridpath Why did I love this book?

The Icelanders are remarkable people with some pretty strange habits. Optimistic, energetic, friendly in a very reserved way, armed with irony that can kill at ten metres, they do not fit the classic Scandinavian stereotype. Over the last decade, as I have researched Iceland for my various Magnus novels, the Icelandic-Canadian Alda has been my guide on all things Icelandic. She gets to the bottom of their quirks and foibles in this brilliant little book of fifty or so essays about the people who live on a treeless volcano with appalling weather. Very funny. Very illuminating.

By Alda Sigmundsdottir, Megan Herbert (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Little Book of the Icelanders as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

After more than 20 years away, Alda Sigmundsdottir returned to her native Iceland as a foreigner. With a native person's insight yet an outsider's perspective, Alda quickly set about dissecting the national psyche of the Icelanders.

This second edition, from 2018, contains new and updated chapters from the original edition, reflecting the changes in Icelandic society and among the Icelandic people since the book was first published in 2012.

Among the fascinating subjects broached in The Little Book of the Icelanders:
ā€¢ The appalling driving habits of the Icelanders
ā€¢ Naming conventions and customs
ā€¢ The Icelandersā€™ profound fear ofā€¦


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Book cover of Acquaintance

Acquaintance by Jeff Stookey,

Acquaintance is a work of LGBT historical fiction, a gay love story set in 1923 when the Ku Klux Klan was growing in influence, the eugenics movement was passing human sterilization laws, illegal liquor was fueling corruption, and Freud was all the rage.

Based on extensive period research, the storyā€¦

Book cover of Independent People

Michael Ridpath Why did I love this book?

To understand Icelanders, I believe you need to understand Bjartur. Bjartur is the independent hero of HalldĆ³r Laxnessā€™s greatest novel, Independent People. The book is set at the beginning of the twentieth century. Over eighteen years as a shepherd, Bjartur saves the money to buy his own farm on some very marginal land. Bjarturā€™s life is a struggle to eke a living out of this farm, called Summerhouses. He marries twice, faces starvation and destitution, but never gives up on his dream of remaining an independent farmer. He is stubborn to the point of cruelty. He is also a poet and sensitive to the folklore around him.  Bjarturā€™s descendants live on in the streets of ReykjavĆ­k; donā€™t mess with them.

By Halldor Laxness,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked Independent People as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Set in Iceland, this story is imbued with the lyrical force of medieval ballads and Nordic myth.


Book cover of How Iceland Changed the World: The Big History of a Small Island

Michael Ridpath Why did I love this book?

To understand a country, you need to understand its history. This book is the most accessible account of Icelandā€™s history and is also very funny. I wish it had been written ten years ago when I started out on my Iceland odyssey. Egill covers the whole of Icelandā€™s history from IngĆ³lfur throwing his home pillars into the sea in 874 to decide where he should land, to the great womenā€™s strike of 1975 when 90 percent of Icelandic women stopped doing what they were expected to do and the country came to a stop. Also includes my favourite bit of Icelandic history. On 9 May 1940 Hitler invaded Belgium and Holland and that same day Britain invaded Iceland, an action so mildly embarrassing that we never really talk about it. Egill does, though. 

By Egill Bjarnason,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked How Iceland Changed the World as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"[A] joyously peculiar book." -- The New York Times

ā€˜Bjarnasonā€™s intriguing book might be about a cold place, but itā€™s tailor-made to be read on the beach.ā€™ ā€“New Statesman

The untold story of how one tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic has shaped the world for centuries.

The history of Iceland began 1,200 years ago, when a frustrated Viking captain and his useless navigator ran aground in the middle of the North Atlantic. Suddenly, the island was no longer just a layover for the Arctic tern. Instead, it became a nation whose diplomats and musicians, sailors and soldiers,ā€¦


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Book cover of Glimmer of the Other

Glimmer of the Other by Heather G. Harris,

Delve into this internationally best-selling series, now complete! A fast paced laugh-out-loud mix of Urban Fantasy and Mystery.

I can tell when youā€™re lying. Every. Single. Time. Iā€™m Jinx, a PI hired to find a missing university student, I hope to find her propped up at a barā€“yet my gutā€¦

Book cover of Silence of the Grave

Michael Ridpath Why did I love this book?

I donā€™t think it is overly ambitious to claim that you can learn a lot about a country from its crime novels. I certainly did, devouring novels by Yrsa SigurdardĆ³ttir, Lilja SigurdardĆ³ttir, Ragnar JĆ³nasson, and the Englishman Quentin Bates. A good crime novel describes not only a place and its people but what makes them tick, what they fear, and what they desire. Itā€™s very hard to pick just one crome novel from so many great ones, but Arnaldur Indridasonā€™s Silence of the Grave won the British Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger in 2005 and also features the British occupation of the country during the war. Plus, itā€™s a damned good story.  

By Arnaldur Indridason,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Silence of the Grave as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Building work in an expanding Reykjavik uncovers a shallow grave.

Years before, this part of the city was all open hills, and Erlendur and his team hope this is a typical Icelandic missing person scenario; perhaps someone once lost in the snow, who has lain peacefully buried for decades. Things are never that simple.

Whilst Erlendur struggles to hold together the crumbling fragments of his own family, his case unearths many other tales of family pain. The hills have more than one tragic story to tell: tales of failed relationships and heartbreak; of anger, domestic violence and fear; of familyā€¦


Explore my book šŸ˜€

Where the Shadows Lie

By Michael Ridpath,

Book cover of Where the Shadows Lie

What is my book about?

One thousand years ago: An Icelandic warrior returns from battle, bearing a ring cut from the right hand of his foe. Seventy years ago: An Oxford professor, working from a secret source, creates the twentieth century's most pervasive legend. The professor's name? John Ronald Reuel Tolkein. Six hours ago: An expert on Old Norse literature, Agnar Haraldsson, is murdered.

Everything is connected, but to discover how, Sergeant Magnus Jonson must venture where the shadows lie...

Book cover of The Vinland Sagas
Book cover of The Little Book of the Icelanders: 50 Miniature Essays on the Quirks and Foibles of the Icelandic People
Book cover of Independent People

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Interested in Iceland, explorers, and the Norsemen?

Iceland 65 books
Explorers 112 books
The Norsemen 16 books