‘Secrets of the Sprakkar’ Featured in NYT: Virtual Book Tour Ongoing

Secret of the Sprakkar: One Small Island Nation, the Women Who Live There, and How They Are Changing the World , by Iceland’s first lady, Eliza Reid, was featured Tuesday In the What to Read section of The New York Times .

The book, published last year, is the author’s love letter to Iceland, her adopted country. Its main focus is on Iceland’s attitude toward women, which she describes both from her personal experience and by conducting interviews with women from all walks of life. ‘Sprakkar’ is an old Icelandic word, meaning ‘extraordinary women.’

Eliza Reid grew up on a farm in Ottawa Valley, Canada, and met her future husband, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, while they were students at Oxford University.

In her review of the book, Cindi Leive writes:

“At its heart, Reid’s book is also a “love letter” from an immigrant to a country afflicted with the insecurity she labels “Small Nation Complex.” (Most of the country stayed up all night when Iceland won its first Oscar in 2020.) And like all love letters, it shines when it’s personal. The most vivid sense of Iceland’s unique approach to gender comes through Reid’s own experiences: How in her first job there, she walks by the conference room to see the board chair nursing a baby while running the meeting, no one batting an eyelash. How she dutifully rushes to a doctor as soon as she gets pregnant, only to have the physician wave her away with “a quintessentially Nordic, hands-off approach,” and send her to a (free) midwife. How she comes to understand the communal attitude toward parenting by seeing her neighbors leave their babies in strollers on the front lawns of their buildings, knowing that any stranger seeing an infant crying will help out instead of dialing 112 (the European equivalent of 911). Throughout, her newcomer’s delight in Icelandic details will charm readers, from the explanation of the nomenclature (you’ll finally understand the dottir methodology!) to the Nordic idioms.”

The author’s book tour of North America, planned for February, had to be rescheduled as a virtual tour, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Three online events have already been held. The remaining ones are as follows:

Saturday February 12th
5pm ET: Politics and Prose Politics and Prose Bookstore
In-conversation with Carol Leonnig
https://www.eventbrite.com/.../pp-live-eliza-reid-secrets...

Wednesday February 16th
6 pm: Harvard Club of Boston (Members Only)
In-conversation with Geraldine Brooks

Friday February 18th
2 pm Eastern time - Virtual event with The Poisoned Pen Bookstore
In conversation with Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
https://calendar.time.ly/.../event/69314144/20220218120000

The book has received very favorable reviews, including the following comment by Hillary Rodham Clinton: “A fascinating window into what a more gender-equal world could look like, and why it’s worth striving for.”

The virtual book tour will continue in March: