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    The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country
    Unavailable
    The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country
    Unavailable
    The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country
    Ebook381 pages6 hours

    The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country

    By Helen Russell

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    * NOW WITH A NEW CHAPTER *






    'A hugely enjoyable romp through the pleasures and pitfalls of setting up home in a foreign land.'- Guardian







    Given the opportunity of a new life in rural Jutland, Helen Russell discovered a startling statistic: Denmark, land of
    long dark winters, cured herring, Lego and pastries, was the happiest place on earth.







    Keen to know their secrets, Helen gave herself a year to uncover the formula for Danish happiness.







    From childcare, education, food and interior design to SAD and taxes, The Year of Living Danishly records a funny,
    poignant journey, showing us what the Danes get right, what they get wrong, and how we might all live a little more Danishly
    ourselves.







    In this new edition, six years on Helen reveals how her life and family have changed, and explores how Denmark, too – or
    her understanding of it – has shifted. It’s a messy and flawed place, she concludes – but can still be a model for a better
    way of living.

    Editor's Note

    Get cozy for the holidays…

    How do people in Denmark stay so happy through long, harsh winters? And how can you do the same this chilly holiday season? Cozy up with this fascinating guide and discover the secrets to living a happy life no matter how cold it gets outside.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIcon Books
    Release dateJan 8, 2015
    ISBN9781848318137
    Unavailable
    The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country

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    Reviews for The Year of Living Danishly

    4/5

    231 ratings18 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Helen Russell is a London-based journalist working long hours to further her career, but finding herself feeling more stressed than satisfied. When her husband is offered a job working for a Danish company, they decide to take a leap into the unknown for a year and see how it works out. Helen turns to freelance journalism focused largely on Danish culture and lifestyle, seeking to understand what is behind the studies showing Danes to be the happiest people on earth. Each chapter of this memoir looks at one aspect of Danish living, from home life and weather to government, from traditions and food to gender roles and parenting. The insights to Danish culture and happiness are interesting and thought-provoking. In parallel to her cultural analysis, Russell candidly shares their immigrant/expat experience, which goes well beyond the obvious language issues to very real differences in mindset and social norms which are not obvious and can easily be violated. Russell’s writing style is breezy, with plenty of humor even when writing about hard times. It’s clear the experience changed Russell and her husband for the better, and the book ends on a positive and hopeful note.
    • 4/5
      An interesting, Brit's view of life in Denmark which manages to come up with many surprising facts about Denmark and Danes. Despite the impression of being quite laid-back, it appears Danes are actually quite highly regulated in many aspects of their life, but accept this as a price for being one of the happiest nationalities. Best read in short chunks.
    • 4/5
      Fun and informative! I loved this.
    • 4/5
      Best for: Anyone possibly considering a move to Denmark. Or just people who like fish-out-of-water stories.In a nutshell: Writer Helen Russell moves with her husband to the land of Legos for (at least) a year, and takes the time to document her experience and how it differs from life in the UK.Line that sticks with me: “ ‘We have a lot of ‘curling parents’ in Denmark, who do everything for their kids and won’t say not to them. The expression is named after the sport — only it’s the parents with the brooms who keep brushing in front of their kids, removing any obstacles to make their lives easier.’ ” (pg 204)Why I chose it: It’s possible I’ll be embarking on my own year of living Danishly in the next few months. Review: This is a fun, fairly quick read (despite its 350 pages). Author Helen Russell decides to spend some of her time in Denmark getting to the bottom of why the country is consistently ranked as having the happiest inhabitants. She breaks the year down by the twelve months, focusing on one area in each month. She explores the home, the workplace (we’ll get back to this), child-rearing, the social support net, health, culture, and traditions, among other things.Some bits are fascinating, and I’d be interested in reading a review from someone who was born and raised in Denmark. I’ve heard that the Scandinavian system — very high taxes, lots of social support, but not nearly as much income disparity as in places like, say, the U.S. — is great in general, and given the fact that in the U.S. our elected officials seem hell-bent in taking what little access to health care we are guaranteed away from us at the first opportunity (for example), it sounds a bit like a dream.However, it is lacking in some parts. First, while Ms. Russell does sort of mention the issue when talking about animals and a law passed that was seen as impacting Kosher and Halal preparation, she doesn’t really discuss what life is like for immigrants who are not white. Do they have the same levels of happiness? How are race relations in the country in general?The other main area that is lacking is the discussion of the workplace. While she does share some of her husband’s experiences, because she is a freelance writer, she doesn’t have first-hand knowledge of what it’s like to work in a different country’s office.
    • 5/5
      Denmark is officially the happiest nation on Earth. When Helen Russell is forced to move to rural Jutland, can she discover the secrets of their happiness? Or will the long, dark winters and pickled herring take their toll?A Year of Living Danishly looks at where the Danes get it right, where they get it wrong, and how we might just benefit from living a little more Danishly ourselves.
    • 4/5
      This is a great book for any one who would like to learn about Denmark. Reading it does not mean you plan to visit there. If you never go, you would have explored the lives of people, the Danes, who are very happy. Helen Russell, the author of "The Year of Living Danishly:..," also shares her life with her husband. She calls him Lego Man. It is because he works for the Lego toy company in Denmark.Although this is a very prosperous country, there are many contradictions. These differences can lead to laughter or just a feeling of 'how strange.' For example, the Danes are very jolly but there is a part of the population who take antidepressants. This surprised me. Also while Denmark is known as peaceable, there is this Denmark thing about passing a blow if you care to do so while out and about or among school friends. It is possible to get in a fight. Also, there are unhappy marriages. The reason given is because the parents prioritize the lives of their children. I suppose there is trouble balancing work, play and love no matter how much money you are paid.Still, it is a fun read, a learning experience and it is wonderful to laugh with the author through her pregnancy. By the way, it takes three years and seven months to become a baker. I did not read much about the location itself: flowers, trees, birds or a tiny bit of information about the historical Vikings whom I only know about through my reading of Historical Romances.Now, here is a bit of irony. The Danes do not stuff their faces every day with a Danish. They choose to have one maybe once a week. What else can I say? You must journey with this author for a year in Denmark, or is it more than a year? Also, is Ginger only a spice and a girl's name? Please read it, and don't forget to ask about the weather. The people in Denmark love to discuss the heat, the cold, whether to shovel your side and their side if they are going away and on and on and on. Oh, almost every person disappears during the month of July.Toward the end I became ready to start for home before the author had finished writing the last page. However, I could not fault her for continuing longer than I thought necessary. She was full of happiness about the baby and Christmas and her mother's visit. Hope to meet this family again in another book. helenrussell.co.uk/books/the-year-of-living-danishly
    • 4/5
      The book was fun! At first I started to fall in love with Denmark too, then halfway through the book I stopped))) and began wondering if the author was really going to stay there for another year, because I wouldn’t. But then, closer to the end I agreed with the author, Denmark seems great! Also I really enjoyed the author’s sense of humor, you read some facts about the country and suddenly you burst out laughing at her remarks on a subject! Very nice!
    • 4/5
      What a brilliant and humorously portrait of Denmark and how you need to find your inner Viking when you start a new life in a foreign country. I will recommend this book to anyone curious about us Danes
    • 5/5
      A lovely, engaging story, exchanging the positives of being an immigrant and the complexities they face. Definitely provides food for thought over the lifestyle we currently live!
    • 4/5
      Is your sense of wanderlust meek but growing? Do you have a spouse that seems to lead the charge with bringing adventure into your life? Well so did Helen Russell. When her daily grind finally ground her down, Helen took an opportunity to spend twelve months in Denmark where she imbedded herself among the happiest folks on the globe to see what pearls of Scandinavian wisdom could be gleaned to add a bit of Danish pep to her own step. Through a process of trial and error, humbling herself, and becoming unexpectedly at ease in a foreign land Helen reports a month-by-month reflection on hygge, family, and career in a way that feels like nothing significant has changed and yet the Russells seamlessly grew there sense of joy, comfort, and belonging. While my own words fall short, Helen beautifully explains the transitional process, acculturation, and fear at mucking it all up. Check it out, share it with others, and don't look back. You may not move to Denmark yourself but after this gem of a travel memoir you will certainly begin adding a bit of Danish hygge to your own life.
    • 5/5
      I absolutely loved this, thank you. Inspiring and funny x
    • 4/5
      Very frank, thorough, very Funny, human.. fabulous read.. made me laugh out loud and cry. I put in 5 sytars actually, but the site won't put them all on..don't know why, but: 5 stars
    • 4/5
      8 years ago, I was working in the American office of a Danish company, waiting for the paperwork to go through on my transfer to Denmark, when I met my (now) husband and ended up moving to Australia instead. I have a fair few friends there in Denmark and that decision was the sliding doors moment of my life in very significant ways. No regrets, just a nagging suspicion that I'd like living in Europe a lot. Dashing through the bookstore the other day (I was playing roulette with the parking meter) this book caught my eye from the bottom shelf of the recessed nook it was relegated to and I snatched it up - this might be a great way of finding out what it might have been like for me (from a cultural perspective) had I continued on through door #1. The book is told from the perspective of a UK journalist who agreed to move to Denmark for one year so her husband could take a job with Lego and is split into 13 chapters, one for each month and one for Christmas. Knowing nothing about the culture or the language, they transplant themselves to the wilds of Jutland (Billund, to be exact - I'd have lived in Aalborg, about 2 hours north) and the author decides to view the whole thing as an experiment: could living "Danishly" help her find a more centered, balanced, and less stressful lifestyle? Help her re-arrange her priorities? A funny, sometimes laugh-out-loud read that includes a deceptive amount of research and statistics - I enjoyed the whole thing. It's longer than one might expect from a humorous memoir, but it's never boring. Overall, the author is fair, relying on stats to make her comparisons, although she often makes Denmark sound rather cultish, with her numerous references to "The Danish Way" and there's a touch or two of demonising the good old USA but I'm coming to expect that anyway, and there's a lot less of it than there could be. Entertaining and informative, at the end, I was left with the certainty that I could live there (they "overheat" their houses, so I'd actually stand a chance of being comfortable!) but I'd struggle with their level of faith and trust in their government (it's not wrong!, just dramatically different than the "challenge everything" ethos I was raised with). But then again, I'd have 5 weeks of paid holiday to get over it...
    • 4/5
      A fun to read book if you are an expat and or going to or have lived in Denmark. The author went thru many typical expat transitions coming from London to living in Denmark. As an expat myself, I recognized the process as she evolved over time. I have never been to Denmark and I certainly want to go after reading this book.
    • 3/5
      This was a fun look at how things are done differently in a land of the midnight sun.

      I would not mind living there. But, i think I am too old to be wanted. There aren't enough working years left in me to contribute much in the way of taxes. Also, my lack of a second language would be embarrassing.
    • 5/5
      Very enjoyable read. Russell’s experience was easy to buy into, and the lessons learned from her time in Denmark can be applied without leaving your home town. The book is very well written, something you don’t always see with books like this. Highly recommend.
    • 4/5
      One British woman moves to Denmark for a year when her husband is hired by LEGO and she researches their claim to be the happiest nation on earth. She delves into a fascinating mix of unemployment rates, government provided childcare and maternity leave, a nationwide month-long holiday, shorter work days, more hobbies, alcohol, and rules, holiday traditions, and trust. I appreciated her skepticism and research and each of the claims as she uncovered “the Danish way” and revealed a whole different culture than what I am accustomed to. It was written with such wit and humor and is such a fun read.“It’s as though the trust allows the welfare state to exist and not the other way around Danes accept that they must pay high taxes because they trust that the government will use their money wisely and do the right thing.”“It is a truth universally acknowledged that being told to relax makes the action itself impossible.”“Yes, even wishes have rules in Denmark.”“But once I got the role I’ve been striving towards, I realized I wasn’t actually any happier – just busier.”“One of the benefits of being a journalist is that I get to be nosy for a living.”
    • 5/5
      Very enjoyable read. Russell’s experience was easy to buy into, and the lessons learned from her time in Denmark can be applied without leaving your home town. The book is very well written, something you don’t always see with books like this. Highly recommend.