Here are 100 books that Vikings in the Attic fans have personally recommended if you like Vikings in the Attic. Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Secrets of the Sprakkar: Iceland's Extraordinary Women and How They Are Changing the World

Autumn Carolynn Author Of Traveling in Wonder: A Travel Photographer's Tales of Wanderlust

From my list on books to take with you on the plane before your international travel adventure.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an avid lover of all cultures, especially travel memoirs. I had a goal to travel to 30 countries in 30 years, and I wrote a memoir, Traveling in Wonder. I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting both the author and side characters in all of these books, as each brings something extraordinary to the story. I also loved the descriptions in these memoirs, which brought me back to my memories!

Autumn's book list on books to take with you on the plane before your international travel adventure

Autumn Carolynn Why Autumn loves this book

Eliza does an incredible job of sharing her story with her readers. I enjoyed her stance on moving from the President’s Wife of Iceland to building her own name, Eliza Reid.

In the book, I learned about a multitude of amazing women who have created a safe space to read about their journeys and triumphs!

By Eliza Reid ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Secrets of the Sprakkar as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER!

A New York Times Book Review Editor's Pick

"Secrets of the Sprakkar is a fascinating window into what a more gender-equal world could look like, and why it's worth striving for. Iceland is doing a lot to level the playing field: paid parental leave, affordable childcare, and broad support for gender equality as a core value. Reid takes us on an exploration not only around this fascinating island, but also through the triumphs and stumbles of a country as it journeys towards gender equality."
-Hillary Rodham Clinton

Iceland is the best place on earth to be a…


If you love Vikings in the Attic...

Book cover of These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

Book cover of The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia

Autumn Carolynn Author Of Traveling in Wonder: A Travel Photographer's Tales of Wanderlust

From my list on books to take with you on the plane before your international travel adventure.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an avid lover of all cultures, especially travel memoirs. I had a goal to travel to 30 countries in 30 years, and I wrote a memoir, Traveling in Wonder. I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting both the author and side characters in all of these books, as each brings something extraordinary to the story. I also loved the descriptions in these memoirs, which brought me back to my memories!

Autumn's book list on books to take with you on the plane before your international travel adventure

Autumn Carolynn Why Autumn loves this book

Michael’s book was such a great read as growing up I’ve always known that Scandinavia is known for being the happiest batch of countries in the world.

In this book, Michael walks through the experiences throughout each country, sharing with the reader their interesting travelogue. It made me want to travel back to Scandinavia again!

By Michael Booth ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Almost Nearly Perfect People as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Christian Science Monitor's #1 Best Book of the Year

A witty, informative, and popular travelogue about the Scandinavian countries and how they may not be as happy or as perfect as we assume, “The Almost Nearly Perfect People offers up the ideal mixture of intriguing and revealing facts” (Laura Miller, Salon).

Journalist Michael Booth has lived among the Scandinavians for more than ten years, and he has grown increasingly frustrated with the rose-tinted view of this part of the world offered up by the Western media. In this timely book he leaves his adopted home of Denmark and embarks…


Book cover of The Yellow Envelope: One Gift, Three Rules, and a Life-Changing Journey Around the World

Autumn Carolynn Author Of Traveling in Wonder: A Travel Photographer's Tales of Wanderlust

From my list on books to take with you on the plane before your international travel adventure.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an avid lover of all cultures, especially travel memoirs. I had a goal to travel to 30 countries in 30 years, and I wrote a memoir, Traveling in Wonder. I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting both the author and side characters in all of these books, as each brings something extraordinary to the story. I also loved the descriptions in these memoirs, which brought me back to my memories!

Autumn's book list on books to take with you on the plane before your international travel adventure

Autumn Carolynn Why Autumn loves this book

This book was quite an interesting read!

I really enjoyed how it tackled traveling through different experiences and in a way that was so unique. I haven't read anything like it before! I also enjoyed the strength of the main character and the comical relief it brought!

By Kim Dinan ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Yellow Envelope as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

What Would You Do with a Yellow Envelope?

In this captivating memoir, Kim Dinan takes readers on an extraordinary expedition that all began with a mysterious gift: a simple yellow envelope containing three life-altering rules. Fueling her with curiosity and courage, Kim and her partner set out on a soul-stirring adventure that transcends borders and redefines their sense of purpose.

Join Kim as she navigates through the vibrant landscapes of diverse cultures, encounters inspiring souls, and grapples with the complexities of life's unexpected turns. This compelling narrative weaves heartfelt emotions, stunning imagery, and profound reflections that resonate with every traveler…


If you love Eric Dregni...

Book cover of Coyote Weather

Coyote Weather by Amanda Cockrell,

Coyote weather is the feral, hungry season, drought-stricken, and ready to catch fire. It’s 1967, and the American culture is violently remaking itself while the country is forcibly sending its young men to fight in a deeply unpopular war.

Jerry has stubbornly made no plans for the future because he…

Book cover of The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life

Autumn Carolynn Author Of Traveling in Wonder: A Travel Photographer's Tales of Wanderlust

From my list on books to take with you on the plane before your international travel adventure.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an avid lover of all cultures, especially travel memoirs. I had a goal to travel to 30 countries in 30 years, and I wrote a memoir, Traveling in Wonder. I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting both the author and side characters in all of these books, as each brings something extraordinary to the story. I also loved the descriptions in these memoirs, which brought me back to my memories!

Autumn's book list on books to take with you on the plane before your international travel adventure

Autumn Carolynn Why Autumn loves this book

I enjoyed the writing style and the adventures the author went through. They were vulnerable and honest in their book, which I really also liked because I felt like I was really being told an honest story overall!

I truly enjoy Nordic culture and books about Nordic culture, so this was right up my alley!

By Anu Partanen ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Nordic Theory of Everything as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A Finnish journalist, now a naturalized American citizen, asks Americans to draw on elements of the Nordic way of life to nurture a fairer, happier, more secure, and less stressful society for themselves and their children.

Moving to America in 2008, Finnish journalist Anu Partanen quickly went from confident, successful professional to wary, self-doubting mess. She found that navigating the basics of everyday life—from buying a cell phone and filing taxes to education and childcare—was much more complicated and stressful than anything she encountered in her homeland. At first, she attributed her crippling anxiety to the difficulty of adapting to…


Book cover of The Big Empty: Dialogues on Politics, Sex, God, Boxing, Morality, Myth, Poker and Bad Conscience in America

Robert J. Begiebing Author Of Norman Mailer at 100: Conversations, Correlations, Confrontations

From my list on reading Norman Mailer.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a Professor of English Emeritus at Southern New Hampshire University and author of ten books, including fiction, criticism, memoir, and collected journalism. I was also an inaugural faculty member in the writing workshops at the Norman Mailer Center in Provincetown, MA. I first got into Mailer in the 1970s after reading The Naked and the Dead and Cannibals and ChristiansI ended up writing my doctoral dissertation on Mailer, which became my first book, Acts of Regeneration. My second book, Toward A New Synthesis, examined Mailer along with John Fowles and John Gardner as writers who adopted some of the techniques of post-modernism but kept their work firmly tethered to ethical issues.  

Robert's book list on reading Norman Mailer

Robert J. Begiebing Why Robert loves this book

Mailer published three nonfiction books near the end of his life to lay out his final take on issues he’d been pursuing his entire writing life and as a highly visible, often notorious, public intellectual: On God, Why Are We at War?—echoing his 1967 novel Why Are We in Vietnam?—and The Big Empty. I chose The Big Empty because the reader comes to understand where Mailer lands finally on so many issues he covered during his decades of political and societal journalism, with a special focus on democracy in America, its potential and its abiding threats.

The book is structured as a series of dialogues with his youngest son, John Buffalo Mailer, who in his introduction argues that such a dialogue with his father represents a necessary conversation among generations. Their topics include, among other pressing intergenerational concerns, the American presidency, endless war, American 21st-century politics,…

By Norman Mailer , John Buffalo Mailer ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Big Empty as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Questions are posed, writes Norman Mailer, "in the hope they will open into richer insights, which in turn will bring forth sharper questions. " In this series of conversations, John Buffalo Mailer, 27, poses a series of questions to his father, challenging the reflections and insights of the man who has dominated and defined much of American letters for the past sixty years. Their wide-ranging discussions take place over the course of a year, beginning in July 2004. Set against the backdrop of George W. Bush's re-election campaign and the war in Iraq, each considers what it means to live…


Book cover of Affinities: A Journey Through Images from The Public Domain Review

Brian D. Cohen Author Of Bestiary: A Book of Animal Poems & Prints

From my list on illustrated stories for grown-ups.

Why am I passionate about this?

I make prints and visual books. I founded Bridge Press, now in Kennebunk, Maine, 1989 to publish limited edition artist's books and etchings. The name of the press underscores the collaborative nature of book making. Visual books offered possibilities for the continuity, connection, and unfolding of images—each image is complete yet linked to every other through the structure of the book. Books seemed an ideal vehicle to assemble and connect my prints, to order and unfold a sequence of images, with defined and recurrent shapes, motifs, and composition, and to create a setting in which each image is complete yet linked to every other through the structure of the binding or enclosure.

Brian's book list on illustrated stories for grown-ups

Brian D. Cohen Why Brian loves this book

An endlessly fascinating and extensive compendium of reproductions of photographs, diagrams, charts, maps, paintings bizarre, sublime, caustic, illuminating – from the ancients to the modern era. Each image retains something of its historical context, yet they are arrayed with a compelling visual logic by a brilliant visual editor.

By Adam Green ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Affinities as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An exploration of echoes and resonances across two millennia of visual culture, celebrating ten years of The Public Domain Review.

Gathering a remarkable collection of over 500 public domain images, Affinities is a carefully curated visual journey illuminating connections across more than two thousand years of image-making. Drawing on a decade of archival immersion at The Public Domain Review, the book has been assembled from a vast array of sources: from manuscripts to museum catalogues, ship logs to primers on Victorian magic. The images are arranged in a single captivating sequence which unfurls according to a dreamlike logic, through…


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Book cover of Temple of Dreams: A Novel of Now and Then

Temple of Dreams by Carolyn Mathews,

Homeless following the death of his adoptive parents in a car crash and the subsequent loss of their farm tenancy, Seb decides to enrol as a residential student at the Asklepios Foundation, a College of Natural Medicine, boasting a sanctuary modelled on an ancient Greek healing temple. Spending a night…

Book cover of Horizontal Vertigo: A City Called Mexico

Andrew Konove Author Of Black Market Capital: Urban Politics and the Shadow Economy in Mexico City

From my list on everyday life in Mexico City.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up hearing stories about Mexico City from my grandmother, who spent her childhood in the 1930s there after emigrating from the Soviet Union. I fell in love with the city’s neighborhoods during my first visit in 2006, and I am still mesmerized by its scale and its extremes. I am especially interested in the city’s public spaces and the ways people have used them for work and pleasure over the centuries. Those activities often take place in the gray areas of the law, a dynamic I explored in the research for my Ph.D. in History and in my book, Black Market Capital

Andrew's book list on everyday life in Mexico City

Andrew Konove Why Andrew loves this book

Juan Villoro’s memoir takes readers on a tour of contemporary Mexico City that is also a meditation on chilangos’ (Mexico City residents) relationship with the past. The book bounces between the author’s childhood in the neighborhoods of Mixcoac and Del Valle and the present day, traversing the sprawling metropolis and giving readers a sense of its scale and complexity. Through Villoro, we meet the sewer cleaners and tire repairmen who keep the city humming. We visit monuments like the Angel of Independence and Chapultepec Castle and the bustling spaces of Santo Domingo Plaza and Tepito—places that seem to hover between past and present and myth and reality. At once spry and erudite, the book is an immensely satisfying rumination on the city and its people. 

By Juan Villoro , Alfred MacAdam (translator) ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Horizontal Vertigo as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

At once intimate and wide-ranging, and as enthralling, surprising, and vivid as the place itself, this is a uniquely eye-opening tour of one of the great metropolises of the world, and its largest Spanish-speaking city.
 
Horizontal Vertigo: The title refers to the fear of ever-impending earthquakes that led Mexicans to build their capital city outward rather than upward. With the perspicacity of a keenly observant flaneur, Juan Villoro wanders through Mexico City seemingly without a plan, describing people, places, and things while brilliantly drawing connections among them. In so doing he reveals, in all its multitudinous glory, the vicissitudes…


Book cover of The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century

Lawrence Lipking Author Of The Ordering of the Arts in Eighteenth-Century England

From my list on the arts as crucial elements of human life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a chameleon scholar. Though my first love is poetry, I have written about all the arts, about 18th-century authors (especially Samuel Johnson), about theories of literature and literary vocations, about Sappho and other abandoned women, about ancients and moderns and chess and marginal glosses and the meaning of life and, most recently, the Scientific Revolution. But I am a teacher too, and The Ordering of the Arts grew out of my fascination with those writers who first taught readers what to look for in painting, music and poetrywhat works were best, what works could change their lives. That project has inspired my own life and all my writing.

Lawrence's book list on the arts as crucial elements of human life

Lawrence Lipking Why Lawrence loves this book

This book is a pleasure to read. John Brewer shows us the birth of "high culture" in Britain, the many ways that a national public became aware that music, painting, theater, and poetry could bring people together and make them happy.

Low life and high life, Grub Street and royalty all come into play. And the book never forgets that the arts can be a source of fun, not only for those who create and follow them but for everyone who reads about them.

By John Brewer ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Pleasures of the Imagination as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Pleasures of the Imagination examines the birth and development of English "high culture" in the eighteenth century. It charts the growth of a literary and artistic world fostered by publishers, theatrical and musical impresarios, picture dealers and auctioneers, and presented to th public in coffee-houses, concert halls, libraries, theatres and pleasure gardens. In 1660, there were few professional authors, musicians and painters, no public concert series, galleries, newspaper critics or reviews. By the dawn of the nineteenth century they were all aprt of the cultural life of the nation.

John Brewer's enthralling book explains how this happened and recreates…


Book cover of American Breakdown

Frank Schaeffer Author Of Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God

From my list on exposing the dark side of evangelical power and religious extremism.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born into the heart of American religious fundamentalism and spent years helping build the Religious Right before walking away from it. My book tells the story of that journey: from certainty to doubt, from dogma to paradox, from fear to love.

I’ve lived at the crossroads of faith, politics, family, and art—and these recommendations reflect the questions that still haunt me: How do we live with compassion in a divided world? How do we raise our children with tenderness in the absence of certainty? These books moved me because they don’t preach. They search. They speak in the voice of those of us who are done with black-and-white thinking, but still believe in grace.

Frank's book list on exposing the dark side of evangelical power and religious extremism

Frank Schaeffer Why Frank loves this book

Gerard’s reflections on a fractured America resonate so deeply with me.

He writes with the same kind of searching spirit I tried to bring to my book: an effort to find a moral center in a world that often seems to have lost its way.

Gerard’s book helped me see that even when everything feels like it’s falling apart, there are still spaces for wonder and decency to take root. And that’s what keeps me writing—and hoping.

By Gerard Baker ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked American Breakdown as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

AMERICAN BREAKDOWN dissects how, in the space of a generation, the pillars that sustained the once-dominant superpower have been dangerously eroded. From government to business, from media to medicine-the strength and security of the American experiment have been weakened by a widening gap between the elites who control these institutions and the public.

At the root of this breakdown is a precipitous fall in Americans' trust in their political, business and cultural leaders. As Baker writes, "This pathology of distrust across American society is eating the country away from the inside." Millions of Americans say they have little faith in…


If you love Eric Dregni...

Book cover of Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS

Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS by Amy Carney,

When I was writing this book, several of my friends jokingly called it the Nazi baby book, with one insisting it would make a great title. Nazi Babies – admittedly, that is a catchy title, but that’s not exactly what my book is about. SS babies would be slightly more…

Book cover of Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong about the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think

Yves Van Nuland Author Of Validating a Best Practice

From my list on evidence based management better decision making.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a chemist (PhD University of Leuven, Belgium). This explains my preference for a rational approach. I was also an assessor for the European EFQM organization. This European Management Model allows an organization or company to achieve excellent results for all its stakeholders. One of the methods used is the Best Practice method. Finally, at the end of my career, I asked myself the question: How do we know that our country is well managed? There is no management model for this yet. That is why I developed a new model: the SAC model. Together with my colleague Grace L. Duffy, we have described this model in several papers.

Yves' book list on evidence based management better decision making

Yves Van Nuland Why Yves loves this book

The author starts with the question: “Are you smarter than my chimpanzee?” When you finished the book, you’ll be so humble to say: I am not!

While reading the book, I was several times surprised by how adults (including myself) have a distorted perception of reality. For example, eighty percent of children worldwide are vaccinated. This means that almost all human beings alive today have some access to basic modern health care. However, on average, just 13 percent of people get the right answer.

Don’t forget that you can only make correct decisions based on accurate data. For this, you can rely on (the many) reliable databases that are available via the internet.

It was for me the first book that convinced me to think and work more with facts and data, i.e., evidence-based management

By Hans Rosling , Anna Rosling Rönnlund , Ola Rosling

Why should I read it?

13 authors picked Factfulness as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'A hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases.' BARACK OBAMA

'One of the most important books I've ever read - an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.' BILL GATES

*#1 Sunday Times bestseller * New York Times bestseller * Observer 'best brainy book of the decade' * Irish Times bestseller * Guardian bestseller * audiobook bestseller *

Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts.

When asked simple questions about global trends - why the world's population is increasing; how…


Book cover of Secrets of the Sprakkar: Iceland's Extraordinary Women and How They Are Changing the World
Book cover of The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia
Book cover of The Yellow Envelope: One Gift, Three Rules, and a Life-Changing Journey Around the World

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Interested in civilization, Scandinavia, and Vikings?

Civilization 235 books
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