Online Nordic Book Club—On Time and Water

Read and discuss Scandinavian literature in translation as part of our Nordic Book Club, now online! Each month we select a novel from some of the best Nordic literary voices. Discussions have typically taken place the last Tuesday of the month at Scandinavia House but will now be taking place bi-weekly as an online meeting.

On June 8, we’ll be discussing the new book On Time And Water by Andri Snær Magnason, who recently joined us for a panel on “Capturing Sustainability in the Arctic” on March 24. See a video discussion of an earlier talk with Magnason on “The Future of Time” with Bjarke Ingels here.

Based on interviews and advice from leading glacial, ocean, climate, and geographical scientists, and interwoven with personal, historical, and mythological stories, On Time and Water is a rich and compelling work of narrative nonfiction that illustrates the reality of climate change—and offers hope in the face of an uncertain future. Moving from reflections on how one writes an obituary for an iceberg to exhortation for a heightened understanding of human time and our obligations to one another, throughout history and across the globe, On Time and Water is both deeply personal and globally-minded: a travel story, a world history, and a desperate plea to live in harmony with future generations.

“Both deeply investigative and intimately personal, it’s an appeal to change that draws as much on the mythological traditions of his homeland as scientific research. A climate book unlike any before it.”—Chicago Review of Books