NAMES FOR THE SEA, by Sarah Moss (author of NIGHT-WAKING) is our July NonFiction choice

[TillyBookClub]

Those of you who read Night-Waking, one of our favourite Bookclub novels of 2012, will remember Sarah Moss' witty and observant take on motherhood, and the impact of trying to bring up two small children on a tiny isolated island. NAMES FOR THE SEA is her very own experience of doing exactly that - in 2009, Moss accepted a job at the University of Iceland, and moved her family to Reykjavik. Her arrival co-incided with the economic collapse, the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull and the onset of Arctic winter, where even the sea is silent and instead of waves there are 'grey slabs, piled up against each other like fallen gravestones'. As the weeks turn into months, Moss and her family explore boiling mud geysers and remote farms, struggle to learn ancient customs and modern Icelandic driving skills, and hunt for any type of fresh vegetable that isn't a potato. Packed with fascinating anthropological detail and comparisons between cultures, this is an extremely intelligent, honest and funny account of one English family's adventures in the Arctic Circle.

Sarah's website has an excellent page about Names for The Sea plus her recent blog posts and information on all her other books.

Granta have 50 copies to give to Mumsnetters - to claim yours please go to the book of the month page. We'll post on the thread when all the copies have gone. If you're not lucky enough to bag one of the free books, you can always get your paperback or Kindle version here.

If you get a free copy, we do expect you to come and and tell us what you think. So please feel free to discuss the book here throughout the month and look forward to hearing your thoughts...

[PestoSwimissimos]

I've applied too, sounds right up my street

[Lomaamina]

I just wanted to say thanks! for the email saying I have a copy en route. I loved Sarah Moss' previous book.

I'll be back with the review in due course.

[RoooneyMara]

Where is the book of the month page?

[pocketandsweet]

Looking forward to receiving mine... Especially as we are immigrating in a couple weeks ( not Iceland) but it should be timely

[PeterParkerSays]

My copy arrived today. So chuffed - I never get books on mumsnet

It'll be going on holiday with me in mid-August, so I won't be feeding back until after that. Looking forward to it though!

[Lomaamina]

My copy arrived today too! Thanks to Granta and Mumsnet. I'll be back with my review.

[PestoSwimissimos]

Mine arrived today too, tahnk you!

[gazzalw]

Hi,already started reading this. Even knowing it's about Iceland is cooling me down in this unbearable lovely hot weather ! Hooked by the first pages description of the Northern Lights.....

Fully anticipating an engaging and enlightening read although not sure about her criticism of JRR Tolkien ....

Thank you for my copy, MNHQ

[LadyMilfordHaven]

i just finished it today at the beach.

I liked it up until the elves chapters then it got dull. it needed to finish before it did.
missed pictures as someone else said on amazon reviews.

HOWEVER she writes beautifully is obviously very very clever and brave and kids very tolerant!!
I kept regaling my kids and twitter feed with Iceland facts and they came thick and fast

[LadyMilfordHaven]

pocket - arent you emigrating?

[LadyMilfordHaven]

watch out for the elves bit it goes ON AND ON - you might want to skip

[tinypumpkin]

I am about half the way through and really loving it! The political part bored me (says a lot about my intellectual interests with reading!) I love Sarah Moss' writing style, it is really engaging. I am finding it hard to put down (when permitted to read). Thanks MN :)

[LadyMilfordHaven]

You wait at the end you're thinking. "I loved this, nowenough !"

[NoWomanNoCry]

Thank you for the free copy. Looking forward to reading it and posting a review on here.

[NinaMH]

A quirky insight into a country I've often wanted to visit.

Reading the first 2 chapters, I was filled with envy and the longing to up sticks and do something adventurous too, but as the reality of being a foreigner in Iceland became less idyllic, the jealousy soon faded.

Anecdotes of maniac drivers and cultural differences are mixed in with stories of Icelandic history and folklore. It was nice to see how her young children integrated into their new life, and the author herself seemed to make a lot of friends through her work, but I couldn't help wondering how her husband coped with the experience from his perspective of a stay-at-home dad. Cultural differences there to be explored, surely?

Still, an interesting read about an intriguing country.

[tinypumpkin]

I am so there now LadyMilfordHaven! :)

[LadyMilfordHaven]

you are elved up?

[REVLAI]

The Names For the Sea is a book which gives an outline of the author's first experience of Iceland and about the country itself. I read the first two chapters of the book and I must say that it does make me want to go on an adventure myself.

[tinypumpkin]

Oh yes ladyMilfordHaven. The last part really let the book down for me. The rest I loved though!

[violetwellies]

LadyMilfordHaven you are just wrong, loved this book, bored people with Iceland facts, liked the politics, and wanted her to stay longer so I could read more. One of the best travel books I have read. Have now loaned it to FiL who has served on ships out amongst those glaciers and that weather, and am looking forward to reading it again.

[NoWomanNoCry]

Thank you for the free copy. To be honest I was not sure whether this book would be my cup of tea but I was so wrong. It was really interesting about Icelandic culture and but also funny at the same time. A good read.

[traceofinsanity]

Thanks for the book mnhq and granta. Not managed to start it yet but can't wait to get into it. I visited Iceland myself a few years ago so looking forward to reminders of some lovely memories

[TillyBookClub]

Thanks to everyone for your comments - brilliant to get the discussion going and hear what you thought.

Here is a note from Sarah herself, written especially for Mumsnet Bookclub, on why she wrote the book:


'I didn?t go to Iceland planning to write a book about it, but I knew I was likely to end up writing about the country in some form. I?m moving on with the novel I?m writing now, but for a long time I felt that the North Atlantic archipelago was where I found what I write about. I thought I might write another novel or a children?s book, but as we settled it seemed that my project was to understand and narrate my own experience of Iceland; real life was so absorbing that I wanted the challenge of writing it rather than making up a world I controlled. I found being a foreigner very hard and at first was disabled by self-consciousness and fear of being a nuisance, but in the second half of the year I made it my project to talk to everyone who could answer my questions, and especially to older people who remembered the days ? in the 1940s ? of taking the milk to market on a horse-drawn sledge and living mostly on dried fish in winter. (Food was a bit of an issue all year.)

My love of Iceland only grew with time, and I still miss it and hope to live there again one day. The landscape, the sea, the seasons and the sky sustained me in some fundamental way, but I?m suspicious of an instinct to celebrate landscape without any serious attempt to integrate socially and culturally, and that was the bit I found hard. Iceland seems very child-friendly after the UK; children are expected to go wherever adults go, expected to be out and about independently from an early age, using urban spaces for their own purposes without anyone fearing or criminalising them. There didn?t seem to be a culture of maternal guilt and there are no stay-at-home parents at all (except my husband). It feels very safe. There are no fences around schools or locks on their doors. Nurseries don?t have intercoms. Everyone swims several times a week and children over six use the appropriate changing room for their sex whichever parent is with them, relying on the kindness of strangers for help when they need it (several times, my older son reappeared having had his hair washed for him by some passing bloke in the shower). Even in central Reykjavik, babies are left outside shops and cafes in pushchairs, and sometimes passers-by will shush a fretful infant. I had been on the more anxious end of the English parenting spectrum, but my children were at the local school and nursery so the only choice was whether to relax and trust that most Icelandic children survive or keep them at home and within arm?s reach for a whole year? We learnt a lot. So did they.'