The Almost Nearly Perfect People

Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia
The Danes are the happiest people in the world, and pay the highest taxes. 'Neutral' Sweden is one of the biggest arms manufacturers in the world. Finns have the largest per capita gun ownership after the US and Yemen. 54 per cent of Icelanders believe in elves. Norway is the richest country on earth. This book deals with Nordic countries.

A funny, fearless tour behind Scandinavia’s polished image.

Michael Booth has long been perplexed by strange paradoxes and character traits of the people of his adopted homelands – and equally bemused by the unquestioning enthusiasm for all things Nordic and hygge that has engulfed the rest of the world.

From his home in Denmark, he travels through Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland to uncover the truth behind the myth of the happiest people on Earth. Along the way a more nuanced, often darker picture emerges of a region plagued by taboos, characterised by suffocating parochialism and populated by extremists of various shades.

Part travelogue, part social investigation, and wholly entertaining, Booth asks tough questions about what happiness really means, how culture shapes wellbeing, and what the rest of the world can - and can’t - learn from the North.


‘The next Bill Bryson’ New York Times

‘Beautifully observed and very funny’ Rory Stewart

‘Comprehensive and occasionally downright hilarious’ Mariella Frostrup, Observer

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