The Whole World Company - Scandinavia - Books

STORE SECTIONS

YOUR GUARANTEE

All products and services come with a 30-day return guarantee

Culture

Store > Browse by Country > Europe > Scandinavia > Culture

	Scandinavian Design Click picture to look inside Scandinavians are world famous for their democratic designs that bridge the gap between craft and industrial production. The marriage of beautiful, organic forms with everyday functionality is one of the primary strengths of Scandinavian design and one of the reasons why Scandinavian creations are so cherished and sought after. This all-you-need guide includes a detailed look at Scandinavian furniture, glass, ceramics, textiles, jewellery, metalware and industrial design from 1900 to the present day, with in-depth entries on over 200 designers and design-led companies, plus essays on the similarities and differences in approach between Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Denmark. Also included is a list of important design-related places to visit for readers planning to travel to Scandinavia. Publisher: Taschen ISBN: 382285882X Published: 2002 Flexicover: 704 pages Price: £19.99


	Alvar Aalto 'The form is a mystery that eludes every definition' - Alvar Aalto Finnish architect Alvar Aalto (1898-1976) was not only influenced by the landscape of his native country, but by the political struggle over Finland's place within European culture. After early neoclassical buildings, Alvar Aalto turned to ideas based on Functionalism, subsequently moving toward more organic structures, with brick and wood replacing plaster and steel. In addition to designing buildings, furniture, lamps, and glass objects with his wife Aino, he painted and was an avid traveller. A firm believer that buildings have a crucial role in shaping society, Aalto once said, 'The duty of the architect is to give life a more sensitive structure.' - Includes photographs, sketches, drawings, and floor plans - Introductory essays explore the architect's life and work, touching on family and background as well as collaborations with other architects - The body presents the most important works in chronological order, with descriptions of client and/or architect wishes, construction problems (why some projects were never executed), and resolutions - The appendix includes a list of complete or selected works, biography, bibliography and a map indicating the locations of the architect's most famous buildings Author: Louna Lahti Publisher: Taschen ISBN: 3822835277 Published: 2004 Softcover: 185 x 230 mm, 96 pages Price: £4.99


	The Poetic Edda The collection of Norse-Icelandic mythological and heroic poetry known as the Poetic Edda contains the great narratives of the creation of the world and the coming of Ragnarok, the Doom of the Gods. The mythological poems explore the wisdom of the gods and giants, narrating the adventures of the god Thor against the hostile giants and the gods' rivalries amongst themselves. The heroic poems trace the exploits of the hero Helgi and his valkyrie bride, the tragic tale of Sigurd and Brynhild's doomed love, and the terrible drama of Sigurd's widow Gudrun and her children. Many of the poems predate the conversion of Scandinavia to Christianity, allowing us to glimpse the religious beliefs of the North. Since the rediscovery of the Poetic Edda in the seventeenth century, its poetry has fascinated artists as diverse as Thomas Gray, Richard Wagner and Jorge Luis Borges. This translation includes a genealogy of the gods and giants, and an index of names. Publisher: Oxford World's Classics ISBN: 0192839462 Published: 1999 Paperback: 367 pages Price: £8.99


	The Vinland Sagas - The Norse Discovery of America The two medieval lcelandic sagas translated in this volume tell one of the most arresting stories in the history of exploration - the discovery of America by Norsemen five centuries before Christopher Columbus. In spare and vigorous prose they record Europe's first surprised glimpse of the eastern shores of the North American continent and the people who inhabited them. The Sagas describe how Eirik the Red founded an Icelandic colony in Greenland and how his son, Leif the Lucky, later sailed south to explore and if possible exploit the chance discovery by Bjarni Herjolfsson of an unknown land. Publisher: Penguin Classic ISBN: 0140441549 Published: 1973 Paperback: 128 pages, 129 x 198 mm Price: £7.99


	Viking - Eyewitness Guide Discover the story of the Vikings - their ships and weapons, legends and sagas of war and discovery. For 300 years, the Vikings took Europe by storm, sacking monasteries and towns in their search for booty and new lands to settle. More than just wild pirates, the Vikings were skilled engineers and craftsmen. See their fine jewellery and woodwork, as well as real longships and a reconstruction of a Danish trading ship. Look inside a typical Viking home, and learn how Vikings spun and wove clothes. See memorial stones inscribed with legends, and trace Viking history from the earliest raids to the introduction of Christianity to Scandinavia. Featuring many objects from leading museums in Scandinavia, Britain, and Ireland, Viking is a unique and exciting introduction to these daring warriors, explorers and traders. - Superb colour photographs of Viking ships and swords, clothes and shields, memorial stones and beautiful brooches, offer a unique 'eyewitness' view into the lives of the Norsemen and their outstanding achievements - See a Viking battle-axe, the magnificent ship used in the funeral of a Viking Queen, a Viking fortress, a beautiful ceremonial sledge, the tools of a Swedish swordsmith - Learn why the goddess Freya cried tears of gold, how longships were made, how Greenland got its name, why walruses were used to make ship ropes, what happened to Thor when he caught the world serpent, how warriors got to Valhalla - Discover why Erik the Red had to leave Iceland, how Viking women applied for a divorce, how Viking sailors navigated, what was on the menu at a Viking Feast, how to put down an empty drinking-horn, the legend of Sigurd the dragon-slayer Suitable for children: 8 years and over Publisher: Dorling Kindersley ISBN: 0751360228 Published: 1997 Hardback: 64 pages Price: £9.99


	A History of the Vikings - Gwyn Jones 'An utterly splendid book, quite the most brilliantly written, balanced, and explanative general work on the Vikings ever to appear in English or in any language' - Scandinavian Studies The subject of this book is the Viking realms, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, their civilization and culture, and their many-sided achievements at home and abroad. A highly readable narrative follows the development of these Northern peoples from their origins and the legendary pre-history to the military triumphs of Canute and the defeat of Harald Hardrádi at Stamford Bridge in 1066, which symbolically ended the Viking age. The book recounts the Vikings' exploits in war, trade, and colonization: the assault on Western Christendom, the trading and military ventures to the Slav and Muslim worlds and to Byzantium, and the western voyages of discovery and settlement to Greenland, Iceland and America. Numerous photographs, maps, and drawings contribute to Gwyn Jones's rounded portrait of Viking civilization and vividly evoke the importance in their culture of religion, art and seafaring. Publisher: Oxford ISBN: 0192801341 Published: 2001 Paperback: 522 pages, numerous halftones, line drawings and maps, 196 x 129 mm Price: £9.99


	Thor Heyerdahl - In the Footsteps of Adam Thor Heyerdahl achieved lasting fame in 1947 sailing the primitive balsa-wood raft 'Kon-Tiki' from Peru to Polynesia. One of the greatest explorers of our day, in this book Thor Heyerdahl has chosen to take a journey through his memories. This is not a chronological autobiography but rather an epic exploration of the world and the amazing events that Heyerdahl has pioneered, participated in and observed. In the Footsteps of Adam is an account of life where personal experiences of a dramatic and emotional nature - secret missions during the war and near-fatal accidents - are woven together with his views on religious fatih, politics and ecology. It is a book that focuses on the author's own remarkable life, and also brings us back to the dawn of civilization and out into the future. Thor Heyerdahl has spent a long lifetime wandering in the footsteps of mankind. He invites the reader to participate in that journey by sharing generously the details of his private and public life, his accumulated wisdom, and his friendships with a wide range of influential world leaders such as Fidel Castro and Mikhail Gorbachev. - 'A compelling compendium of adventure, history and philosophy by a man who knows arguably as much about the planet as anyone alive' - Scotsman Publisher: Abacus ISBN: 0349112738 Published: 2001 Paperback: 352 pages Price: £8.99


	Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) - Out of Africa From the moment Karen Blixen arrived in Kenya in 1914 to manage a coffee plantation, her heart belonged to Africa. Drawn to the intense colours and ravishing landscapes, Karen Blixen spent her happiest years on the farm and her experiences and friendships with the people around her are vividly recalled in these memoirs. Out of Africa is the story of a remarkable and unconventional woman and of a way of life that has vanished for ever. Isak Dinesen was the pen-name of Karen Blixen, who was born in Rungsted, Denmark in 1885. After studying art in Copenhagen, Paris and Rome, she married her cousin, Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke, in 1914. Together they went to Kenya to manage the coffee plantation. After their divorce in 1921, she continued to run the plantation until a collapse in the coffee market forced her back to Denmark in 1931. Publisher: Penguin Classics ISBN: 0141183330 Published: 2001 Paperback: 336 pages Price: £7.99


	Munch For Edvard Munch (1863-1944), painting was an act of self-liberation. His treatments of fear, desperation and death still exert a powerful visual and psychological effect on modern viewers. Of all Munch's paintings, 'The Scream' (1893), representing a figure tortured by horror, is the most well-known and certainly one of the most expressive. The artist reflected his innermost feelings in his work: 'In reality, my art is a free confession, an attempt to clarify to myself my own relation to life...'. Although Edvard Munch cannot be clearly identified with any single movement, he is deemed a pioneer of Expressionism. Author: Ulrich Bischoff Publisher: Taschen ISBN: 3822859710 Published: 2000 Softcover: 185 x 230 mm, 96 pages Price: £4.99


	Henrik Ibsen - A Doll's House and Other Plays 'You've never loved me, you've only found it pleasant to be in love with me.' The plays in this volume, each written a decade apart, demonstrate different sides of Henrik Ibsen's genius, but all deal with themes of alienation from society and the breaking down of convention. A Doll's House (1879) portrays a woman questioning her duty to her husband and seeking to escape from the stifling confines of her marriage - a theme that shocked contemporary audiences and established Ibsen's name outside Scandinavia. In The League of Youth (1869), his first prose drama, Ibsen created a vivid comedy about a hypocritical politician, and in The Lady from the Sea (1888) he depicts a woman who longs for the life she enjoyed by the sea before she was married. Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 0140441468 Published: 1973 Paperback: 336 pages, 129 x 198 mm Price: £7.99


	August Strindberg - Three Plays (The Father, Miss Julie, Easter) The three plays in this volume focus on the tumultuous relationships between men and women, whether they are father and daughter, brother and sister or lovers. Miss Julie is a ruthlessly realistic depiction of an upper class woman's seduction of a servant, emphasizing the differences and the antagonism between them. In The Father a man is brought to madness and driven out of his home by the suspicion that his daughter is not his own child, while Easter centres on a family in need of redemption for its sins and suffering, finding forgiveness at a season of rebirth. Strindberg's acute psychological analysis and his dramatization of naked emotion within a naturalistic domestic setting make him one of the great innovators of the modern theatre. Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 0140440828 Published: 1975 Paperback: 176 pages, 129 x 198 mm Price: £8.99


	The Kalevala The Kalevala is the great Finnish epic, which like the Iliad and the Odyssey, grew out of a rich oral tradition with prehistoric roots. During the first millenium of our era, speakers of Uralic languages who had settled in the Baltic region of Karelia, which straddles the border of eastern Finland and north-west Russia, developed an oral poetry that was to last into the nineteenth century. This poetry provided the basis of the Kalevala. It was assembled in the 1840s by a Finnish scholar who took 'dictation' from the performance of a folk singer, in much the same way as our great collections from the past, from Homeric poems to medieval songs and epics, have probably been set down. Published in 1849, it played a central role in the march towards Finnish independence and inspired some of Sibelius's greatest works. This new and exciting translation by poet Keith Bosley is the first to truly combine liveliness with accuracy in a way that reflects the richness of the original. Publisher: Oxford World's Classics ISBN: 019283570X Published: 1999 Paperback: 736 pages, 196 x 129 mm Price: £9.99

Store > Browse by Country > Europe > Scandinavia > Culture

CART DETAILS

HELP

For all the information you need on shopping at our store, click here

For help with your order, click on the Help link