For anyone with an interest in the Icelandic pop scene, Paul Sullivan’s one-of-a-kind work Waking Up in Iceland is a must-read. Written in the spirit of a true vagabond on a mission, this travelogue-chronicle offers an insightful look into modern Iceland, its people, culture and ancient musical heritage.

Sent to attend the Iceland Airwaves Music Festival and document the history, roots and current state of affairs in the country’s thriving music arena, Sullivan, a British national and travel and entertainment journalist by profession, finds himself in Reykjavík 101 awed by shadows of Iceland’s mystic past and the humbling grandeur of its artistically inclined present. His bid to discover the true nature of the Icelandic art form and its underlying myriad inspirations leads him to travel to the remotest corners of this volcanic island, interacting with a wide range of Icelanders in the process. Yet, whether hiking glacial plains around Akureyri or driving icy roads to Ísafjörður in the Westfjords, the author’s deep fascination with everything Icelandic remains always self-evident and appears to only deepen throughout the book.

Waking Up in Iceland
While a bit dated by rapidly changing music industry standards, Paul Sullivan’s excellent book Waking Up In Iceland, published in 2003, reads much more like a personal travel memoir rather than a collection of facts about the Icelandic music scene an uninformed prospective reader might mistakenly assume it to be. In addition to providing a thorough overview of Icelandic pop, rock and punk, Sullivan takes plenty of pages to share his music-related interviews and firsthand experiences with native Icelanders. The work is remarkable in that it covers not only the pop culture of modern Iceland, but also its origins and many more obscure yet deeply fascinating aspects of Icelandic life such as the structure of rímur and the widespread superstitious belief in Hidden People, spirits that supposedly inhabit rocks and other inanimate objects. Equal parts cultural primer, music review, and Viking travelogue, this should be regarded as mandatory reading for those seeking an Icelandic adventure.

As if to supplement and provide context for the first person interviews with some of the biggest names in Icelandic entertainment circa 2003, the work offers a uniquely comprehensive introduction to Iceland with chapters devoted to local folklore, traditional superstitions, and even the neopagan religion Asatru. Remarkably, Sullivan seemingly manages to interview everyone from film director Baltasar Kormákur to an Icelandic Phallological Museum curator, stopping short only of securing some face time with the high profile international pop sensation Björk. The book also provides useful barhopping tips as a result of its author exploring Reykjavík’s party scene along the Laugavegur during breaks in his busy schedule.

Sullivan’s writing is fluid, almost conversational in style, and yet his discourse does occasionally involve the use of uniquely specialized culture and industry specific vocabulary, helping create a generally sophisticated impression and often requiring the reader’s undivided attention to comprehend completely. Consequently, the work has an informative, even slightly educational air, not unlike that commonly found in the likes of guidebooks and trip planners. However, Sullivan’s fast-paced narrative somewhat minimalist in descriptions ensures a certain freshness in readability and the absence of dull moments.

Heima (2007)
The Iceland tour film from Sigur Rós, Heima translates simply as “at home” and – true to its title – features the band’s live domestic performances in Reykjavík and smaller Icelandic towns. Part raw Airwaves footage, part music video compilation, and part engaging Q&A session with Jónsi, Kjarri and the other band members, this offering features incredible scenery and an outstanding, beautifully mixed sound score, both of which will leave you breathless and gasping for more. Sigur Rós provide invaluable commentary on their motivations, cultural influences and rise to international fame. However, the music itself is equally remarkable, and when combined with artistically shot scenes of glacial lagoons and black sand beaches leaves an indelible impression. Whether or not you are a fan of this particular band, watching Heima will no doubt prove to be a deeply inspirational experience, almost religious in its magnitude, and make you want to visit Iceland to appreciate its both its natural and manmade wonders with your own eyes.

Screaming Masterpiece (2005)
A cinematic overview of Reykjavík’s top musical talents, Ari Alexander Ergis Magnússon’s Screaming Masterpiece features a cascade of interviews with such prominent and influential individuals as Björk, Barði Jóhannsson, Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson and even the Faroese artist Eivør Pálsdóttir. Interwoven with live concert footage of Apparat Organ Quartet, Slowblow, Trabant, Múm, The Sugarcubes and other Icelandic bands performing for both local and global audiences are bits of commentary on the ancient origins of the country’s musical tradition. While the film succeeds in offering an all-inclusive look into various genre segments of the modern Icelandic music scene, its presentation lacks polish and the interviews with artists appear rather superficial. For those with a serious interest in the subject, Screaming Masterpiece may represent a good starting point, but it is by no means an exhaustive resource – for a more complete treatment, refer to Paul Sullivan’s Waking Up In Iceland.

Staying true in spirit to Nobel Prize winner Halldór Laxness’ novels Independent People and Under the Glacier, Waking Up In Iceland thoroughly explores the origins of Icelandic music from ancient Viking poetry and nursery rhymes to the modern industry’s independent local labels and more globalized mainstream artists. Conveniently, Paul Sullivan also presents his readers with cultural glimpses into Icelandic life, so richly formulated as if to prepare them for an in-person visit – which you no doubt will be much closer to actually making by the time you have read the last page.

While technically a mystery novel at its heart, Christina Sunley’s The Tricking of Freya reads like a transnational Icelandic-Canadian memoir, a uniquely crafted and deeply exploratory tale involving the themes of immigration and cultural dislocation in the context of today’s American modernity.

What starts out as a letter to a long-lost sibling replete with flashbacks from Freya’s past, gradually shifts gears to form a thoroughly engrossing account of a search for identity set against the magnificient backdrop of contemporary Iceland. Impressively, Sunley’s work brims with asides on mythology, history, culture and language of this remote island nation, which help to acquaint the unfamiliar reader with fundamentals of Icelandic tradition in a remarkably natural way. It is thus that we learn about the great migration of Icelanders to Canada that followed a catastrophic volcanic eruption in the late nineteenth century; the words for heaven, gimli, and love, elskan; the primordial myth of the Ginnungagap, the “yawning abyss” from which the universe was born; and the apocalyptic legend of Ragnarok, the end of the world predicted by ancient pagan seers.

The Tricking of Freya
Published in 2009, Christina Sunley’s beautifully written debut novel The Tricking of Freya is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in Iceland and the greater Scandinavia region in general. At once a heartfelt tale of familial intrigue, a thoroughly researched introduction to the culture and history of Iceland, and a testimonial to the importance of exploring one’s roots, the work is roughly organized around the search of 30-year-old Freya Morris for a long-lost relative. The daughter of an Icelandic-Canadian mother and an American father, Freya lives a mundane life in a Connecticut suburb commuting daily to work in a darkroom in New York City. Haunted by the memories of her traumatic past and disinterested in the uneventful present, she struggles to come to terms with her childhood experiences, Icelandic heritage and identity as a person. Building on this premise, Sunley delivers a powerful, culturally potent narrative every bit as memorable as the much-referenced Icelandic sagas and eddas themselves.

Freya, her name a variation derived from that of Freyja, the Norse goddess of love and beauty, is torn between fully embracing her Icelandic heritage most vividly represented by eccentric aunt Ingibjorg (Birdie for short) and confirming to the more familiar North American culture she is growing up in. On summer trips to Gimli, an Icelandic-Canadian settlement on Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, Freya’s mother Anna and Birdie can never agree about whether or not Freya should be taught Icelandic. Anna’s good friend Vera meanwhile finds Birdie’s extravagance, flamboyance in fashion, mood swings and suspiciously playful demeanor around men to be signs of bad taste rather than cultural difference.

Yet, her aunt’s liveliness, exuberance, and generally mercurial nature prove magnetic, pulling young Freya into a distinctly Scandinavian reality of myth and folklore where ancient superstitions live on amid a uniquely sophisticated and open-ended modernity which, remarkably, seems to value style over substance while at the same time placing freedom of artistic expression above all else. Birdie’s is a volatile, strangely inspired world of secret alliances, philosophical obstinance to monoculturalism, and ulterior motives where feelings change “like lake weather” and the lack of predictability is perhaps the only certainty. Following in the footsteps of Freya’s grandfather, the great poet Olafur, Birdie experiences occasional bursts of creativity during which she works on her own epic masterpiece written in the Icelandic language, The Word Meadow.

Deeply affected by her aunt’s love for the family heritage, almost cosmopolitan enthusiasm for everything cultured and refined, and insistence on the preservation of tradition, Freya begins to sympathize with Birdie as she represents an escape from the routines of her otherwise mundane and conservative life. It is this self-exploration and reacculturation of Freya to the Icelandic that form the backbone of Christina Sunley’s highly recommended work.

First published in 1993 and sadly overlooked by mainstream world literati, Death in the Andes from Peruvian novelist and 2010 Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa is a monumental modern classic, a complex work that dares to explore challenging social and political constructs, and in doing so indirectly delves into the very essence of Latin America. While a reader unfamiliar with Llosa’s oeuvre may be tempted to mistake the novel for a detective story, a closer look will reveal layers upon layers of fascinatingly convoluted sociocultural commentary.

On the surface, Llosa opens his intricate narrative as a missing persons investigation with Civil Guard Corporal Lituma and his young assistant Tomás Carreño arriving in the remote mining village of Naccos to probe the mysterious disappearances of three men amid the conflict between Peruvian government forces and Sendero Luminoso Marxist rebels. Before long, however, Lituma and Carreño, both from the relatively prosperous and developed Lima coastal region of Peru, find themselves in a precarious situation, surrounded and outnumbered by secretive, Quechua-speaking, mountain dwelling serruchos whose brutality, superstition and pre-Columbian ways make the hapless duo feels akin to aliens from another planet.

Death in the Andes
In his masterful work Death in the Andes, Mario Vargas Llosa paints a grim, gritty picture of a collision of two irreconcilable worlds. The ongoing clash between traditionalism, exemplified by shamanic rituals, and modernity, represented by Lituma’s deductive approach, is set in a lush mountain hamlet against the turbulent socio-political backdrop of early 1990s Peru. Pervaded by an atmosphere of dread, its characters haunted by an unseen shapeless menace that seems to inhabit every hill of the Andean highlands, the novel offers an exuberant portrayal of a life on the fringes of modern society and the contemporary Western psyche. Far from the magical realism so often employed by other masters of Latin American literature in works such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ One Hundred Years of Solitude and Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits, Llosa’s vision is stark and unforgiving, the subject matter of his work often times dark and unsexy, his novel clearly not an offering written for export. An overlooked classic. Highly recommended.

Facing the formidable mountain landscape, rich in ancient myths and malevolent spirits, Lituma begins to doubt his original supposition that the missing men were taken by the terrucos, the Sendero Luminoso militia. As more bizzare and even supernatural possibilities surface one after another, legends of pishtacos, Carreño’s short vignettes of his love story with Mercedes, the ramblings of local witch Doña Adriana and her husband Dionisio’s diabolical laughter all combine with large amounts of pisco to form one thick, impenetrable brew in the minds of the two outsiders. Far from solving the case, the newcomers soon find themselves wishing they could only leave this godforsaken outpost in one piece to return to the hotbed of civilization in Lima.

Llosa expertly weaves his story, rich in descriptors and cultural references but never too slow or superfluous in its mesmerizing detail. Carreño’s romantic substory is elegantly interwoven with Lituma’s search for the missing men as if to make up for lack of action in the gray present with juicy flashbacks from a happier past. However, what really sets the novel apart from similarly themed works is the abundance of mystical elements Llosa manages to explore by means of casually introducing the reader to ancient Incan legends and folk tales.

The final verdict? A shamefully under-appreciated masterpiece by one of Latin America’s greatest writers and most certainly the definitive work of fiction for anyone interested in the traditional culture of Peru.

Variously known over the centuries as Thule or “the northernmost land” in Viking myth, a strategically important rocky outcrop in the North Atlantic during the Cold War, and more recently as the home country of Björk and Sigur Rós, Iceland with its rich heritage of Norse sagas, beautiful language and hard-earned prominence in the global cultural imagination is a special place often overlooked by Paris and Rome-crazed Europe-bound travelers about as likely to correctly identify Reykjavík on a map as Ulan Bator, the capital city of Mongolia.

Yet, it’s hardly surprising – for those looking to learn more about the Icelandic culture and language will sadly find few quality resources available. Constrained by their volcanic island’s remote geography and a small population base of just 300,000, the Icelanders have only recently, with the advent of new communications technologies, begun to make their cultural presence felt around the world.

On the upside, however, this just means it is not too late for those of us intrigued by the Land of Fire and Ice to get involved and do a little bit of researching and discovering on our own. Hence, below I offer a brief overview of the some of the best materials available on Iceland which I have personally enjoyed and hope you will likewise find useful.

The Tricking of Freya
Published in 2009, Christina Sunley’s beautifully written debut novel The Tricking of Freya is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in Iceland and the greater Scandinavia region in general. At once a heartfelt tale of familial intrigue, a thoroughly researched introduction to the culture and history of Iceland, and a testimonial to the importance of exploring one’s roots, the work is roughly organized around the search of 30-year-old Freya Morris for a long-lost relative. The daughter of an Icelandic-Canadian mother and an American father, Freya lives a mundane life in a Connecticut suburb commuting daily to work in a darkroom in New York City. Haunted by the memories of her traumatic past and disinterested in the uneventful present, she struggles to come to terms with her childhood experiences, Icelandic heritage and identity as a person. Building on this premise, Sunley delivers a powerful, culturally potent narrative every bit as memorable as the much-referenced Icelandic sagas and eddas themselves.

Waking Up in Iceland
While a bit dated by rapidly changing music industry standards, Paul Sullivan’s excellent book Waking Up In Iceland, published in 2003, reads much more like a personal travel memoir rather than a collection of facts about the Icelandic music scene an uninformed prospective reader might mistakenly assume it to be. In addition to providing a thorough overview of Icelandic pop, rock and punk, Sullivan takes plenty of pages to share his music-related interviews and firsthand experiences with native Icelanders. The work is remarkable in that it covers not only the pop culture of modern Iceland, but also its origins and many more obscure yet deeply fascinating aspects of Icelandic life such as the structure of rímur and the widespread superstitious belief in Hidden People, spirits that supposedly inhabit rocks and other inanimate objects. Equal parts cultural primer, music review, and Viking travelogue, this should be regarded as mandatory reading for those seeking an Icelandic adventure.

Beginner’s Icelandic
Once you’ve familiarized yourself with the books listed above, you’ll likely want to learn to speak a bit of the language – and here’s the resource to help you do just that. Part of the Hippocrene series of language books, Beginner’s Icelandic is an excellent introduction to the essentials of Icelandic grammar and comes equipped with two audio CDs for mastering pronunciation. Well organized and concisely presented, each of the 14 chapters in the book begins with a dialogue or two exemplifying new concepts, then moves on to add on individual grammar and vocabulary items, before throwing at you some practice exercises to review. While having studied this introductory text from cover to cover will not make you anywhere near fluent in Icelandic, it’s a good starting point for those looking to get a structured overview of the language before diving deeper into something more serious like Stefan Einarsson’s comprehensive Icelandic. Another possible next step would be to check out an audio course like Hildur Jonsdottir’s Teach Yourself Icelandic.

So now, dear reader, armed with your personal curiosity, good sense and the resources presented in this article, I wish you the best in your Icelandic odyssey in the hopes that it will eventually lead you to consider taking a trip to Iceland, as mine has certainly done for me.

In the meantime, we will continue to add relevant materials to the site, and periodically update this page with information on additional Iceland-related resources, links to in-depth book reviews and travel tips.

In the several years I’ve spent living in San Diego, finding a quality spot to enjoy a reassuring cup of hot, creamy, properly caffeinated goodness has never been easy.

Every once in a while, I’d stumble across a hidden gem here and there, yet these encounters were always brief and – most frustratingly – generally unplanned. My decision to join Yelp a little while back was a major step in the right direction, but even this didn’t solve the problem completely.

So on a rainy autumn day not long ago I set out to sample some of San Diego’s top coffee shops and will now attempt to share my impressions with you below.

• Pappalecco

  Perhaps most accurately described as a momentary trip to another country, the experience of visiting Pappalecco will have you not only returning here for drinks and gelato, but also rushing to book airline tickets for your Italian vacation! More from my Yelp review:

  One word: bravissimo! I work just a few blocks away, so I often come to Pappalecco for coffee or tea or to savor an afternoon snack from the rich assortment of fresh Italian delicacies this place offers. The people who work here are super friendly and amazingly dedicated. They all speak Italian, so if you drop by often like me you’ll probably end up learning a few words too!

  The gelato is made fresh daily and tastes way better than the alternatives you might find at other gelatterias in the area. Coffee is likewise top-notch and light years beyond Starbucks. Try it iced with half-and-half on a hot summer day and you’ll know what I mean.

  If you’re looking for the authentic Italian coffee shop and gelato experience in San Diego, look no further. Free wi-fi makes this the perfect classy hangout spot to bring friends or spend an hour by yourself blogging or just watching the clouds go by. Location in the heart of Little Italy is also a plus.

• Tabac Specialty Coffee & Cigars

  Do you smoke? No? How about hookah? But really, one does not need to smoke to appreciate the quality coffee and excellent service this place has to offer. Here they also serve gelato and sell delicious sweets. More from my Yelp review:

  With fresh gelato, hookah and hand-rolled cigars, Tabac is much more than a quality coffee shop – it is a refined cultural experience like no other. European and Middle Eastern overtones are reflected in the interior decor, furniture and the chill, loungey ambiance.

  Coffee here is nothing short of amazing – some of the finest I’ve had in my life, in fact – with the White Mocha being my current favorite. The late hours (Tabac is open until roughly midnight on weekdays and past 1am on weekends!) and free Wi-Fi are even more reasons to visit.

  An excellent, classy break spot to pause and unwind in the course of a busy day, enjoy a good book or just watch the clouds go by, this is a great place to stop by at any time, be it for an afternoon cup of coffee or a late night post-clubbing hookah visit with friends.

• Peet’s Coffee & Tea La Jolla

  The only coffee chain that deserves a mention, Peet’s is not a place you’ll find on every street corner and their La Jolla location specifically delivers outstanding quality and experience at bargain prices. More from my Yelp review:

  Having been a loyal customer for over two years now, I can tell you that if a God of Coffee existed, his name would no doubt have to be Alfred Peet. The caffeinated pleasures one can experience at Peet’s Coffee and Tea easily surpass the offerings of competing chains like Starbucks and Seattle’s Best, and this is especially true of the excellent, newly remodeled La Jolla location.

  The first Peet’s opened its doors in 1966 and they still keep things old school when it comes to making coffee: a café au lait is crafted with the same care and dedication to quality as a four-person order of large white chocolate mochas. Even something as simple as a medium latte never ceases to impress with its rich full-bodied flavor and foamy crema finish on top. I stay away from Spenda and the like, so to sweeten my day I’ll occasionally ask them to add vanilla instead or just treat myself to a matcha green tea freddo for a change.

  If you consider yourself a connoisseur of good coffee, you probably know how difficult it can be to find a quality coffee shop here in San Diego. While mediocre product abounds, one has to search far and wide to find a truly worthwhile coffee drinking experience. And now that you’ve found one – go check it out!

• Brick & Bell Cafe

  A coffee shop with international flair, Brick & Bell was a favorite coffee break spot of mine for quite a while when I worked in La Jolla Cove. Their convenient location, pastries made fresh daily and variety of lunch options make this place a great spot to relax and unwind half way through a busy day. More from my Yelp review:

  Be it a 10 minute coffee break, a lunch outing with coworkers, or a Saturday morning brunch with a friend, Brick & Bell has something to offer for each of these occasions.

  The ambiance here is classy, laid back and exuberantly international, with friendly multilingual staff and small flags from around the world decorating the interior of the shop. The outer courtyard has that cozy, distinctly old school, romantic flair that can actually make your beautiful day in good company even better.

  Coffee and sandwiches are excellent – and, of course, priced accordingly. The pastries – like muffins, scones and croissants – are made fresh daily at 5am in the morning. Also, their new Traveler Plus lids ooze with hi-tech sophistication and simply rock.

As always, this is by no means an exhaustive list and it will be revised as new coffee shops turn up and I have time to give them a try. Any suggestions on where to go next?

Much like its opening track – The World Is Gray – suggests, the rest of the album is rather bleak and characterized by a certain emptiness with repetitive undertones. Somewhat reminiscent of both Iron & Wine and Coldplay, Ghosts from the Past sounds sadly derivative, lacking the distinctly Icelandic mysticism of Bang Gang’s earlier works. Far from Inside’s emotive talk of lost dreams or the joyful liveliness of Stop in the Name of Love, the lyrics remain steadily uninspired throughout as demonstrated by the melancholic tone of the titular song Ghosts from the Past.

Having set the plank for themselves so high with Something Wrong, it should come as no surprise that Bang Gang’s new album fails to live up to the standards of its predecessor. Yet, with that said, it is still difficult to forgive the shallowness of this offering’s lyrics and the lack of the ethereal style which made the group’s previous album so beautiful and unique. Recommended for die-hard fans only; others would be best advised to wait until Bang Gang’s next album.

Modern Warfare 2, however, certainly does look spectacular and will most likely be worth every penny. Visually the game is essentially unsurpassed, featuring a brand new graphics engine with ridiculous amounts of texture detail and superb special effects. One look at the in-game footage from the trailer or the flurries of screen shots floating around the web should suffice to convince even the most demanding aesthete that this game is the real deal, destined it seems to set a new benchmark for the FPS genre.

Story-wise we’ll be getting what you’d expect – more of the same adrenaline-pumping action that made the first Call of Duty: Modern Warfare so addictive and realistic. The bad guys you defeated earlier, with Zakaev in charge, are back in full force and your quest to hunt them down and prevent nuclear armageddon will again take you around the globe, from the snows of Kazakhstan to the slums of Rio. This time around there will also be more vehicles for you to use, including some rather exotic ones like the snowmobile.

Interestingly, the developers at Infinity Ward insist they have engineered a brand new AI system that will make gameplay much less predictable than it has been so far in most previous first person shooters as enemies will not pop up in the same locations and react the same way each time you play a level. As a result, you won’t see hordes of zombie-like adversaries bluntly charging at you in wave after wave or frantically trying to run through a wall as you stand back and take aim, but the bad guys that do show up should be much more lethal than usual, and – due to their smarter AI – considerably tougher to dispatch.

With its addictive special ops campaign mode, high-tech weaponry and improved enemy AI, Modern Warfare 2 looks set to offer FPS gamers many hours of engaging gameplay and, for aficionados of the series, a welcome break from crappy World War II era guns and floods of brainless adversaries so prevalent in Activision’s most recent Call of Duty outing, World at War.

Modern Warfare 2 is set to hit the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC platforms on November 10, just in time for the holidays.

Since all of these vast subjects are clearly interconnected and spread out far beyond the borders of any one nation state, we will strive to offer new insights into cultural fusion arising from commercial globalization and shaping the transnational mosaic of the modern world. So – expect to see plenty of materials on faraway places and people with names we, English speakers, may be prone to mispronounce!

In providing a trustworthy and frequently updated source of information on the latest trends in modern world culture, we hope to create an intellectually-minded online community for people who like to think globally – outside the box – people like you.

Alors, bienvenue!