Adam@Home by Rob Harrell for September 18, 2009

He must be brilliant if he can pass off a thesis by that name

For those of you who do know, Revkjavik is the capital of Iceland.

haha, why not? (I live in Reykjavík fyi). If he studied here then np :D

He must have paid someone to write his thesis.

John Irving had a character who specialized in Icelandic literature.

Dora, for those who don’t know, what is the capital of Iceland? :)

What’s wrong with writing about Iceland? Is it a boring country? I think it would be lovely in summer.

now for the big question adam, what is your name??

I thought the capital of Iceland was the krona….

hildigunnur, is there any literature coming out of Iceland worth reading (in translation) these days? I’m always on the lookout for that sort of thing, but unless someone wins the Nobel for Literature, it’s tough to hear about it.

Iceland has long been one of my fantasy “running away” destinations, but unfortunately I don’t eat fish. The same thing has kept me from New Orleans…

@fritzoid Don’t worry about not eating fish - Iceland has very thriving lamb and beef industries too. The best hambugers and hot dogs I have ever tasted were the ones I purchased from vendors in downtown Reykjavik.

Is it still true that the Reykjavik telephone directory lists people alphabetically by their first names?

That’s cheating, MisngNOLA, I was going to say that.

(Great minds think alike, as they say)

Fritzoid, yep (about the phone book) and that’s not about to change. Literature - hmm let me check - there are some thrillers and such being translated if you want, Arnaldur Indriðason, and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir have English translations, the more “serious” authors tend to be translated to German rather than English. I found one book by Sjón on Amazon but haven’t read it myself. Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson has also had some books translated, I think. Hallgrímur Helgason’s quite good, too and has at least one book in English.

And don’t worry about only having to eat fish here, like Hendelca says we have all sorts of food + some excellent ethnic restaurants and everything ;)

Fritzoid, by all means, go to New Orleans even if you don’t like fish. There are many wonderful restaurant which cook all sorts of non-sea creatures. Ruth’s Chris Steak House was started in Greater New Orleans for example (even though they’re not one of the best places in the city), and the Brennan family has many decent restaurants which serve all manner of entrees from beef dishes, pork, lamb, fowl, and even vegetarian fare. Chef Emeril Lagasse has Delmonico’s Steak House and several other restaurants, and Paul Prudhomme is another noted chef. If your tastes run a little cheaper, there are even such wonderful neighborhood places as Port O’Call, Lil’ DIzzy’s, Mother’s, and literally hundreds of other great places to eat not involving seafood.