The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World's Happiest Country
I love all things Scandinavian: TV series, crime thrillers (Nordic noir), cinnamon buns and good Viking genes, I take it all. I was lucky enough to visit Stavanger in Norway and Stockholm in Sweden, but Denmark is (unfortunately) still on my to-do list. Hence this book...
Journalist and Londoner Helen Russell relocates to rural Jutland in Denmark for a year with her husband. Having previously read that the Danes are the happiest people in the world and Denmark one of the best countries to live in, she embarks on a life-scale study of her own in order to discover the secret to their contentment.
Several aspects of life in Denmark are investigated by Helen and reported on here, such as childcare, education, food, interior design and high taxes, but also sexism and Seasonal Affective Disorder (fellow SAD sufferers, I hear you).
Russell's account is quite a fun read for the most part as she manages to balance statistics and facts with several witty comments. However, I have to shamefully admit that I found myself speed reading (and even skip reading) some of the most tedious bits. Despite a great fondness for Scandinavia (and thus Denmark) and a good attention span usually, I found myself not being able to cope with some of the longer paragraphs towards the end of these memoirs.
The Bibliovore's verdict ⋆⋆⋆⋆
This book is quite witty and funny in parts and, more importantly, provides what seems to be a good account of what life as a contented Dane is like. I might have wanted a bit more humour to bring this to a 5 star verdict. But maybe that was just my frame of mind at the time of reading. Could I live in Denmark? Absolutely yes... but only in summer. For my own sanity, I would still need to spend my winters somewhere else than a frozen grotto.
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