Sugarcubes, "Birthday" [Icelandic Music]
This one’s a given. Bjork + Bragi Olafsson. (We’ll be featuring Bragi’s literary work later this week.) Man, does this take me back . . . Originally released in 1988, Life’s Too Good is still pretty awesome. “Birthday” was what really put The Sugarcubes on the map, and evokes a very ...
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Book Sluts [Icelandic Culture]
This is a guest article by Amanda DeMarco, editor of Readux: Reading in Berlin and contributor to Publishing Perspectives. Just so happens that Amanda is in Iceland right now, and totally wanted in on this Icelandic Week project. In addition to this piece, she’s working on at least one more for us, which will run later ...
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"Under the Glacier" by Halldor Laxness [Icelandic Literature]
In addition to featuring various Icelandic tunes this week, I also want to highlight a number of works of Icelandic literature that are available in English translation. And since Halldor Laxness is Iceland’s one and only Nobel Prize winner, he seems like the perfect author to start with. Laxness was born in 1902 and ...
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Mum, "Blessed Brambles" [Icelandic Music]
If there’s one thing Americans know about Iceland, it’s that this small country has an amazingly vibrant music scene. And over the course of this week, we’ll be highlighting a bunch of bands and performers, starting with M繳m (pronounced “Moom”), one of my personal favorites. I like all of ...
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The Bridge Series: David Bellos
Last week we featured David Bellos’s Is That a Fish in Your Ear? on our Read This Next, website and after reading the sample we made available (along with the interview and full review), I’m sure that everyone in the greater NYC area will want to go see Bellos talk about his book as part of The Bridge Series. ...
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The Iowa Review Forum on Literature and Translation
The Iowa Review is up to a lot of cool things . . . First off, as you can see in the ad below, they’re sponsoring a writing contest for poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, with the winners each receiving $1,500 and the first runners-up getting $750. That’s pretty solid. But more to the point of this website, ...
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Introducing Icelandic Week
The Frankfurt Book Fair kicks off next Wednesday, and since I won’t be able to attend this year (boo!), I’ve decided that instead, next week will be “Icelandic Week” here at Three Percent as a way of celebrating Iceland as this year’s Guest of Honor. We’ve got an amazing amount of stuff ...
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