Sånn er det: Scandinavians
21 October 2011
From norsk, ikke sant? by Jenny K. Blake
… if I had only known. 😉
(Jenny K. Blake’s first book, Brown Cheese, Please, is one of my favorites. It gives a light-hearted perspective on Norwegian culture and lifestyle and is a “must read” for anyone who has moved to Norway or is thinking about moving to Norway.)
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One thing’s wrong with that picture, though: the Norwegian should have his dog on a leash
(says the irate dog owner, who believes leash laws are waaaay too strict in Norge).
Jena, did you find this book in Norway? I just checked the American Amazon price, and it’s $200!
That’s got to be a misprint! I bought both books (Brown Cheese — that one really is hilarious! — and norsk, ikke sant?) at Norli for around 250 kr each. But yesterday I saw that she has a new book out called “The Norway Way,” but I didn’t have a chance to stop and look at it. One of my fav part of the Brown Cheese book is her variations on matpakke and pølse cartoon.
Huh. Just went to Amazon myself. I hadn’t noticed the price when I linked it! I think I’ll change the link to a Norwegian website. That’s crazy. The author is an Australian who is living in Oslo, so maybe the book is only really available in Norway.
Looks like it’s cheapest at Tanum.no:
http://www.tanum.no/searchresult.aspx?search=quickfirstpage&quickvalue=jenny+k+blake&title=jenny+k+blake&fromproduct=False
http://www.capris.no/product.aspx?isbn=8251620422
Her pleier jeg å finne de billigste bøkene:):)
Oh wow! I didn’t know about that bookshop. They are cheap! Thanks very much!
Ps! Veldig morsomt bilde!! Det passer helt PERFEKT:)
Ikke sant? Jeg kan ikke snakke for nordmenn, men disse var absolutt mitt inntrykk før og etter å ha bodd i Norge! 🙂
Tror nok alle nordmenn (,svensker og dansker) kjenner seg igjen i de stereotypene. Partysvensker, forfyllede, pølsespisende dansker (eller røykende, designjåler) og norske fjellaper…
Nordmannen var jo veldig uskyldig og søt, da! Det er bra kulturforskjeller og kultursjokk kan få sånne bivirkninger som disse fantastiske bøkene, om ikke annet.
Ha. Totally true. Back then I never knew that Swedes, Norwegians and Danes differ so much, but now I do 🙂
I think if you compare Scandinavians to Indonesians or Americans, they are all different from Americans or Indonesians in the same way. But if you compare Scandinavians with each other, you get the pictures at the bottom!
My Norsk father told me stories and sang songs about these differences. The Norwegians always came out on top, of course!
Oh yes! My son knows loads of jokes in which the Swedes and the Danes are made out to be fools and you know the very same joke is told in Sweden and Denmark with the roles changed! I really like the brotherhood of Scandinavia. There’s a bit of that camaraderie between Canada and the U.S. (with films like “Canadian Bacon”!) but the sense of a familial relationship between the Scandinavian nations is much stronger.
Definitely going to try to get a hold of this book for my book club!!! What a hoot!
Kimberly
It really is great fun, Kimberly. I laughed at every single page of “Brown Cheese, Please” and it’s so fun to laugh at cultural differences that are sometimes annoying!
When we come close to Spencer Johnson’s That Relocated My
Cheese? we are facing, not so much an e-books, as a financial phenomenon.
The mathematics are staggering: