Virtual Book Tour and Giveaway - Viking Voyager: An Icelandic Memoir by Sverrir Sigurdsson with Veronica Li

Welcome to my stop on the virtual book tour for Viking Voyager: An Icelandic Memoir by Sverrir Sigurdsson with Veronica Li. This book tour was organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. On my stop, I have an excerpt from the book as well as a great guest post about Iceland from the author. There's also the tour wide giveaway to win a $50 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for more content. Enjoy!

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Title: Viking Voyager: An Icelandic Memoir

Author: Sverrir Sigurdsson with Veronica Li

Publisher: Mascot Books

Publication Date: November 3rd 2020

Print Length: 284 pages

Genre: Autobiography/Memoir

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This vivacious personal story captures the heart and soul of modern Iceland. Born in Reykjavik on the eve of the Second World War, Sverrir Sigurdsson watched Allied troops invade his country and turn it into a bulwark against Hitler’s advance toward North America. The country’s post-war transformation from an obscure, dirt-poor nation to a prosperous one became every Icelander’s success. Spurred by this favorable wind, Sverrir answered the call of his Viking forefathers, setting off on a voyage that took him around the world.

**The eBook is only $1.99 during this tour!**

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EXCERPT:

One memorable incident took place [in 1968] during our drive through Anbar province in Iraq. The place was unheard of when I motored through, but after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, this Sunni stronghold of Saddam Hussein’s became world renowned for insurgency and suicide bombings. Even during my days, traveling in this neighborhood was dicey. While guessing my way through the desert of Al Anbar, we passed a ghastly sight. It was the charred remains of what looked like a small industrial complex. The scene evoked news articles about an Israeli air raid on an Iraqi nuclear research facility. I knew we shouldn’t be there, but there was no other way out than to keep driving. Soon after, a military patrol pulled up alongside. I stopped the car, and we all got out to show them exactly who we were, a family of dumb, lost foreigners.

A soldier peered into my car. He started shouting angrily in Arabic, his finger jabbing at the camera on the back seat. They hustled us all back into the Peugeot, I in the driver’s seat, Monika next to me, while Steinn shared the back seat with the soldier. I felt something hard poke at my spine. I glanced at the rearview mirror and realized the object was the muzzle of the soldier’s machine pistol. The drive lasted an hour at most, but it seemed like eternity. To prevent an accidental burst from the gun, I took it slow and easy on the desert tracks.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Sverrir Sigurdsson grew up in Iceland and graduated as an architect from Finland in 1966. He pursued an international career that took him to the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and the U.S. His assignments focused on school construction and improving education in developing countries. He has worked for private companies, as well as UNESCO and the World Bank. He is now retired and lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and coauthor, Veronica.

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Veronica Li emigrated to the U.S. from Hong Kong as a teenager. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of California, Berkeley, and her master’s degree in International Affairs from Johns Hopkins University. She has worked as a journalist and for the World Bank, and is currently a writer. Her three previously published titles are: Nightfall in Mogadishu, Journey across the Four Seas: A Chinese Woman’s Search for Home, and Confucius Says: A Novel. 

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GUEST POST:

Fascinating (and some little known) facts about my home country, Iceland
by Sverrir Sigurdsson

Tourism in Iceland exploded during the past decade, topping two million visitors in 2018. The COVID-19 outbreak has put a pause on the industry, but after reducing its cases to almost zero in June 2020, Iceland has reopened its doors to foreign tourists. 

For those interested in the country and perhaps plan to visit, here are some fascinating facts.

Geology. Iceland is literally cracked in the middle. This is where subterranean forces tear apart two overlapping tectonic plates, the Eurasian and North American. You can see the upheaval shortly after you land. As you drive out of the airport, you’ll see a lunar landscape of lava fields and fissures on both sides of the highway. But the fault is much more spectacular at Thingvellir, some 30 miles from Reykjavik. Millions of tourists have walked through this rift canyon surrounded by magnificent walls of lava rocks. The tectonic crack widens by about two inches every year, adding annually about 6 acres to the land area. Iceland is the only country in the world that is expanding its territory and none of its neighbors feels threatened. 

First Parliament in the World. Thingvellir is also the venue of the world’s oldest parliament. Starting in 930 AD, chieftains had met there once a year to establish laws and settle disputes. Nothing can be grander than a leader standing on the Law Rock, a natural platform at the top of the ridge, announcing the decisions made by Parliament. 

Population. In the late nineth century, Vikings from today’s Norway and Denmark settled in an uninhabited island, which they named Iceland. Most of the settlers were men, but they abducted women from Ireland and the now British isles to help them populate the island. The Icelandic population currently stands at about 350,000.

Language. Icelandic has changed remarkably little since settlement. It’s the root of Scandinavian languages as Latin is the root of Romance languages. While the physical isolation of the country was a factor, the principal reason is that the Icelandic language is set in ink, in the form of the Sagas, a collection of historical accounts written in the 13th and 14th centuries. This is the first collection of Scandinavian text written in the local language about local people. For centuries, storytellers traveled from farm to farm to recount these written stories, an entertainment like watching TV. 

Volcanoes with Short Names. Beware of Icelandic volcanoes with two-syllable names such as Laki, Hekla, and Katla. The one named Eldgjá is the champion of all volcanoes. It erupted in AD 939, setting the world’s record for the amount of basaltic lava spewed (18 cubic kilometers). To put that into perspective, I calculated that this could cover the entire state of Virginia with a six-inch-thick layer. Laki comes as a serious runner-up with a disastrous eruption of 14 cubic kilometers in 1783-84. The last Icelandic flare up that grabbed international attention was the six-syllable Eyjafjallajökull. Although it disrupted trans-Atlantic flights in 2010, among Iceland’s volcanos it’s just a mole hill of little consequence. 

Economic Transformation. In a matter of a few decades, Iceland was transformed from one of the poorest countries in Europe to one of the richest. Throughout the ages, Iceland had been an obscure, dirt-poor pile of rocks. The Second World War changed all that. After Hitler invaded Norway, Allied nations realized that Iceland, situated in the middle of the North Atlantic, was one of the last defenses against German advance toward America. Britain, followed by the U.S and Canada, sent troops to occupy the island and turned it into a fortress. As a result, the Icelandic economy boomed from the construction and other war activities.

This good fortune continued during the Cold War. Both the Soviet Union and the US wooed the strategically important island. The US established a navy base in Keflavik, the site of today’s international airport. Planes from the base played cat-and-mouse games with Soviet submarines attempting to slip into the world’s oceans through the GIUK (Greenland-Iceland-UK) gap. Tom Clancy’s thriller The Hunt for Red October describes this phenomenon well.

Taking advantage of this favorable climate, Iceland invested in its natural resources. It turned waterfalls and hot springs into green energy, which supported the establishment of energy-hungry industries, aluminum in particular. In recent years, millions of tourists around the world have discovered the natural beauty of Iceland. They enjoy not only nature but also first-class facilities. Little can they imagine that not that long ago, Icelanders were living in primitive turf houses.

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GIVEAWAY:

Sverrir Sigurdsson and Veronica Li will be awarding a $50 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card to one randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter. To increase your chance of winning, leave a comment at a different stop on the tour each day. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway