Nordic items archive - February 2025

A collection of things I have read, cooked, found, listened to or watched this month - all with one thing in common.

Books

• Estonia by Neil Taylor.

  I visited Tallinn in December and I loved it. Probably the Baltic country that has the strongest Scandinavian vibes. On my last day I went to a small bookshop in the city centre and picked up this book from their (small) english language section.

Podcasts

• An episode of The News Agents in which Lewis Goodall interviews Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the Prime Minister of Denmark between 2011 and 2015. (Spotify link)

Recipes

• I made Fastlavensboller (based on this recipe).

Pictures

• This nice Instagram album showing Queen Sonja of Norway visiting a Munch exhibition in Rome. It’s the first time in 20 years that a Munch is held in Rome.

Articles

• A nice piece about Nordhavn, defined “the 5-minute neighborhood of Copenaghen” by the Guardian. (guardian.com)

• An article about the government crisis in Norway. As a result, the Labour party now leads a tiny minority government. (ilpost.it)

• Another article about Greenland, its relationship with Denmark, the United States and the Trump family (freitag.de)

• Why Nordic companies are so successful? (The Economist)

• PhD students and postdoc researchers will be asked to enrol in some Norwegian language course as part of their studies and work. There seems to have been a bit of an outcry about this, I am not sure it’s justified. (nature.com)