Try free for 30 days
-
Secrets of the Sprakkar
- Iceland’s Extraordinary Women and How They Are Changing the World
- Narrated by: Ann Richardson
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $24.37
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also picked
-
The Little Book of the Icelanders
- 50 Miniature Essays on the Quirks and Foibles of the Icelandic People
- By: Alda Sigmundsdottir
- Narrated by: Alda Sigmundsdottir
- Length: 2 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After more than 20 years away, Alda Sigmundsdottir returned to her native Iceland as a foreigner. With a native person's insight yet an outsider's perspective, Alda quickly set about dissecting the national psyche of the Icelanders. This second edition, from 2018, contains new and updated chapters from the original edition, reflecting the changes in Icelandic society and among the Icelandic people since the book was first published in 2012.
-
Woman, Captain, Rebel
- The Extraordinary True Story of a Daring Icelandic Sea Captain
- By: Margaret Willson
- Narrated by: Ann Richardson
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Captain Thuridur, born in Iceland in 1777, lived a life that was both controversial and unconventional. Her first time fishing, on the open unprotected rowboats of her time, was at age eleven. Soon after, she audaciously began wearing trousers. She later became an acclaimed fishing captain brilliant at weather-reading and seacraft and consistently brought in the largest catches. In the Arctic seas where drownings occurred with terrifying regularity, she never lost a single crewmember. Author Margaret Willson reveals Captain Thuridur's fascinating story.
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Plea for Cutting For Stone!
- By karenf on 14-05-2023
-
The Comfort of Crows
- A Backyard Year
- By: Margaret Renkl
- Narrated by: Margaret Renkl
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Margaret Renkl presents a devotional of sorts: fifty-two essays that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year. As we move through the seasons—from a crow spied on New Year’s Day, its resourcefulness and sense of community setting a theme for the year—what develops is a portrait of joy and grief. Joy at the ongoing pleasures of the natural world: “Until the very last cricket falls silent, the beauty-besotted will always find a reason to love the world.” And grief at a shifting climate, at winters that end too soon, at songbirds growing fewer and fewer.
-
The Alchemy of Us
- How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another
- By: Ainissa Ramirez
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Alchemy of Us, scientist and science writer Ainissa Ramirez examines eight inventions - clocks, steel rails, copper communication cables, photographic film, light bulbs, hard disks, scientific labware, and silicon chips - and reveals how they shaped the human experience. Ramirez tells the stories of the woman who sold time, the inventor who inspired Edison, and the hotheaded undertaker whose invention pointed the way to the computer.
-
Njál's Saga
- By: Anonymous
- Narrated by: Gunnar Cauthery
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on events that took place between 960 and 1020 AD, Njál 's Saga is a mesmerizing drama about a multigenerational cycle of violence and retribution, and the feuds and passions that perpetuate it. The eponymous sage Njál, known for his keen legal mind, is one of Iceland's pre-eminent men, along with Gunnar of Hlidarendi, a fierce and formidable warrior married to the diabolical Hallgerd, whose conniving instigates the interminable pattern of romance, action and brutality - until one unforgivable act ends it all.
-
The Little Book of the Icelanders
- 50 Miniature Essays on the Quirks and Foibles of the Icelandic People
- By: Alda Sigmundsdottir
- Narrated by: Alda Sigmundsdottir
- Length: 2 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After more than 20 years away, Alda Sigmundsdottir returned to her native Iceland as a foreigner. With a native person's insight yet an outsider's perspective, Alda quickly set about dissecting the national psyche of the Icelanders. This second edition, from 2018, contains new and updated chapters from the original edition, reflecting the changes in Icelandic society and among the Icelandic people since the book was first published in 2012.
-
Woman, Captain, Rebel
- The Extraordinary True Story of a Daring Icelandic Sea Captain
- By: Margaret Willson
- Narrated by: Ann Richardson
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Captain Thuridur, born in Iceland in 1777, lived a life that was both controversial and unconventional. Her first time fishing, on the open unprotected rowboats of her time, was at age eleven. Soon after, she audaciously began wearing trousers. She later became an acclaimed fishing captain brilliant at weather-reading and seacraft and consistently brought in the largest catches. In the Arctic seas where drownings occurred with terrifying regularity, she never lost a single crewmember. Author Margaret Willson reveals Captain Thuridur's fascinating story.
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Plea for Cutting For Stone!
- By karenf on 14-05-2023
-
The Comfort of Crows
- A Backyard Year
- By: Margaret Renkl
- Narrated by: Margaret Renkl
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Margaret Renkl presents a devotional of sorts: fifty-two essays that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year. As we move through the seasons—from a crow spied on New Year’s Day, its resourcefulness and sense of community setting a theme for the year—what develops is a portrait of joy and grief. Joy at the ongoing pleasures of the natural world: “Until the very last cricket falls silent, the beauty-besotted will always find a reason to love the world.” And grief at a shifting climate, at winters that end too soon, at songbirds growing fewer and fewer.
-
The Alchemy of Us
- How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another
- By: Ainissa Ramirez
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Alchemy of Us, scientist and science writer Ainissa Ramirez examines eight inventions - clocks, steel rails, copper communication cables, photographic film, light bulbs, hard disks, scientific labware, and silicon chips - and reveals how they shaped the human experience. Ramirez tells the stories of the woman who sold time, the inventor who inspired Edison, and the hotheaded undertaker whose invention pointed the way to the computer.
-
Njál's Saga
- By: Anonymous
- Narrated by: Gunnar Cauthery
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on events that took place between 960 and 1020 AD, Njál 's Saga is a mesmerizing drama about a multigenerational cycle of violence and retribution, and the feuds and passions that perpetuate it. The eponymous sage Njál, known for his keen legal mind, is one of Iceland's pre-eminent men, along with Gunnar of Hlidarendi, a fierce and formidable warrior married to the diabolical Hallgerd, whose conniving instigates the interminable pattern of romance, action and brutality - until one unforgivable act ends it all.
Publisher's Summary
For the past twelve years, the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report has ranked Iceland number one on its list of countries closing the gap in equality between men and women. What is it about Iceland that makes many women's experience there so positive? Why has their society made such meaningful progress in this ongoing battle, from electing the world's first female president to passing legislation specifically designed to help even the playing field at work and at home? And how can we learn from what Icelanders have already discovered about women's powerful place in society and how increased fairness benefits everyone?
Eliza Reid, the First Lady of Iceland, examines her adopted homeland's attitude toward women—the deep-seated cultural sense of fairness, the influence of current and historical role models, and, crucially, the areas where Iceland still has room for improvement. Reid's own experience as an immigrant from small-town Canada who never expected to become a first lady is expertly interwoven with interviews with dozens of sprakkar ("extraordinary women") to form the backbone of an illuminating discussion of what it means to move through the world as a woman, and how the rules of society play more of a role in who we view as "equal" than we may understand.