Writing in Ice: A Crime Writer's Guide to Iceland

                                   Here is a more detailed list of the various sources I have used to learn about Iceland over the years. This list is far from comprehensive. Its obvious weakness is that it only lists books published in English, thereby omitting all kinds of books only available in Icelandic, as well as books about Iceland in German, French, Spanish and other languages. And I haven’t included every book I have read on the subject. Non-fiction books in this post: future posts will run through poetry, fiction, film and TV, magazines and the Internet. So, here goes: Non-Fiction Books Icelandic Saga by Magnus Magnusson.  A trip around Iceland, beautifully combining its landscape and its history. The Little Book of the Icelanders by Alda Sigmundsdóttir .  A little book about Iceland and its quirks by an Icelandic-Canadian writer with a ...

Which brings us to names.  The Icelanders have a unique approach to naming people.  It ranges from the simple Jón Jónsson, a boy’s name, to the more complicated Boghildur Dögg Skarphédinsdóttir, a snappy girl’s name.   The system works as follows.             Your ‘last name’ is your father’s name, plus ‘-son’ if you are a boy, and ‘-dóttir’ if you are a girl.  There is no surname in a conventional European or American sense.    So I would be Michael Andrewsson, since my father’s name was Andrew.  My sister would be Mary Andrewsdóttir.  My grandfathers’ names were Claude and Conrad, so my parents would be Andrew Claudesson and Elizabeth Conradsdóttir.    This seems noble is some ways: our parents are honoured and my sister and mother have names which respect their sex – there is something fundamentally illogical about the English name Jane Johnson, for example.  But our tig...