Children of Ash and Elmis a very engaging overview of the culture of the Scandinavians in the Viking Age.
It’s written by a leading archaeologist in the field and is conveyed in an engaging and informative manner—this is not a dry textbook.
Featuring information based on the latest discoveries, this is the book to read if you want to get inside the Viking mentality in the most factually accurate way we have possible today.
'As brilliant a history of the Vikings as one could possibly hope to read' Tom Holland
The 'Viking Age' is traditionally held to begin in June 793 when Scandinavian raiders attacked the monastery of Lindisfarne in Northumbria, and to end in September 1066, when King Harald Hardrada of Norway died leading the charge against the English line at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. This book, the most wide-ranging and comprehensive assessment of the current state of our knowledge, takes a refreshingly different view. It shows that the Viking expansion began generations before the…
I’ve always found the history of The Troubles fascinating, as grim and confounding as it is. This book does an excellent job of providing a general overview of that history by taking the disappearance in the 1970s of a single mother as its starting point.
Say Nothing reads like a murder mystery (because it basically is one) as it winds its way through the streets of Belfast and Northern Ireland’s turbulent, recent past. Narrative nonfiction at its best.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER •From the author of Empire of Pain—a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions
"Masked intruders dragged Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widow and mother of 10, from her Belfast home in 1972. In this meticulously reported book—as finely paced as a novel—Keefe uses McConville's murder as a prism to tell the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Interviewing people on both sides of the conflict, he transforms the tragic damage and waste of the era into a searing, utterly gripping saga." —New York Times Book Review
I’ve really enjoyed Angus Donald’s entire Fire Born series, andThe Loki Sword (the third volume) happens to be the one that I read during the time period in question.
Each book in the series is a wild, violent, adventure through pre-Viking era Scandinavia and Germany, featuring a reluctant berserker and a gung-ho shield maiden as the main characters. The Loki Sword revolves around a quest to recover a legendary sword inspired by an actual mythological sword, Tyrfing, and is a lot of fun.
An ancient blade, fit for the gods but tainted with a deadly curse.
Bjarki Bloodhand has finally managed to subdue his gandr, the spirit that gives him the ferocity of a bear in battle. Yet losing his berserker prowess may leave him at the mercy of his foes.
Meanwhile, his half-sister, the shield maiden Tor Hildarsdottir, has slain two warriors from the personal retinue of the new Jarl of Norrland - and now faces brutal reprisals for their deaths.
Valtyr Far-Traveller claims he has a solution to their problems: a long voyage south to the wild Slav lands to find…
Picking up where its medieval forebears left off, The Impudent Edda not only introduces readers to a fresh, new perspective on both familiar and previously unknown narratives of Norse mythology, but also brings the world’s foremost epic fantasy trilogy to its inevitable and fateful conclusion: in a dank alleyway behind a dive bar in Boston.
“The text throughout is caustic, demotic and profanity-laden, as though our narrator isn’t some hoary-bearded Viking bard sitting by the fireside but a modern guy shooting the breeze with buddies over a beer. The result is a smart, lovingly rendered blend of academia and pastiche.” —Financial Times
“You don’t have to be a Bostonian to find The Impudent Edda hilarious and even if you know a lot about Old Norse mythology, you’ll find its unique take both thought-provoking and insightful. The Norse gods as you’ve never seen them before!” —Carolyne Larrington, translator of The Poetic Edda and author of The Norse Myths That Shape the Way We Think
