Shelf Control #1 | From the Mouth of the Whale

I wanted to join a new weekly feature and stumbled upon Shelf Control hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.

Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! For more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out the introductory post, here.

16059540 From the Mouth of the Whale by Sjon
Published by: Farrar, Straus and Giroux on August 30th, 2013
Pages: 231

Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Synopsis (from Goodreads): From the Mouth of the Whale is an Icelandic saga for the modern age. The year is 1635. Iceland is a world darkened by superstition, poverty, and cruelty. Men of science marvel over a unicorn’s horn, poor folk worship the Virgin in secret, and both books and men are burned.

Sjón introduces us to Jónas Pálmason, a poet and self-taught healer, banished to a barren island for heretical conduct, as he recalls his gift for curing “female maladies,” his exorcism of a walking corpse on the remote Snjáfjöll coast, the frenzied massacre of innocent Basque whalers at the hands of local villagers, and the deaths of three of his children. Pálmason’s story echoes across centuries and cultures, an epic tale that makes us see the world anew.

How I got it: One summer we decided to walk down the main shopping street in our city and popped in to a used book store. I wandered through the shelves looking for books that seemed interesting/caught my eye.

Why I want to read it: I read a book by this author previously and enjoyed it. Also, my partner and I have travelled to Iceland twice now and I thought reading a novella about Iceland in 1635 would be interesting. Plus the synopsis is really good. I can’t believe I haven’t picked this one up yet.

Would you read this book or one by this author? Let me know down below!

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