The Windows of Brimnes

A Midwesterner contemplates the view of America from a remote Icelandic village: “A pleasure to read and ponder.” —Booklist (starred review)

A Minnesotan of Icelandic ancestry, Bill Holm had traveled all over the world, gathering material for a number of rich and memorable books. Then he decided to journey to the land his family had long ago left behind for the United States, and moved into a town with one general store in a nation of a few hundred thousand people. This book recounts his time at Brimnes, his fisherman’s cottage on the shore of a creek in northern Iceland. There, he embarks on a very different life in a very different world, and from thousands of miles away, considers the fate of America—“my home, my citizenship, my burden”—in these provocative, compelling essays.

“A master storyteller.” —Los Angeles Times

“Bill Holm’s life in [this] place of spare beauty will make readers wish they had a Brimnes where they could restore their souls.” —Pioneer Press (St. Paul)