The almost nearly perfect people: behind the myth of the Scandinavian utopia by Michael Booth

The almost nearly perfect people: behind the myth of the Scandinavian utopia Reviews

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  Aleksandra

  The best
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  Hannah

  I was really looking forward to reading this book, being from Finland myself but having lived abroad for nearly 20 years. Unfortunately I could not make muself finish any of the other chapters as the one aabout Finland was so appalling full or old really tored clishes, nothing that would describe the country and socienty as it is now in 2020. Hugely dissapointing.
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  Mrs. K. Ezekiel

  Having traveled in the Nordic region for work over the past 20 years, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it made me smile and even laugh out loud. Michael Booth seems to reserve his deepest admiration for the Finns and I can understand why. We used to have a Finnish au pair who looked after our children when they were young. I would sometimes find her sitting alone in complete silence and semi darkness, enjoying her own company. She slept with her window open (in London!) because she enjoyed "listening to aeroplanes". I was absolutely charmed by her strangeness. Our children adored her.
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  Herts Bookworm

  I found this book very interesting. I am a big fan of Scandinavia but having only visited the countries and not having lived there I was looking for a book that would give me an insight into this fascinating part of the world, their people and their nature. This book has definitely helped me with that! I liked the fact the book is divided into sections, one for each country and that the writing is quite informal i.e. even when discussing serious topics the author doesn’t forget to “lighten up” the mood by using humour. I think it is a very informative book: I can now say I know these countries a bit better, I have an idea of their positives and negatives, whether it is the issues the particular country is dealing with, their history and relationship with one another and the rest of the world or the characteristics of their populations. I think it’s difficult to write a book about a nation, giving an idea of what their people are like. It’s easy to make generalisations and fall into the trap of stereotyping, however, I think the author managed to avoid this. It his book and therefore it’s based on his experiences, it will never be completely “objective” but it succeeds in giving quite a lot of information on 5 countries in just over 400 pages.
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  Ellen

  As a Brit learning Norwegian in the hopes of moving to Scandinavia for work, this book was very enlightening. There is a slight bias to Denmark, as that is where the author lives, but all countries were discussed in depths. It was interesting to learn of not only how the countrymen are today, but also of the extensive histories of each of the Nordic lands. I look forward to travelling myself and using the knowledge from this great read.
• 
  egerton

  Highly entertaining.if you like Nick Hornby and David Nichols, you'll like Michael Booth. A great way to explore the sometimes subtle, sometimes great differences between races that the uninformed loosely call Scandinavian. It's also useful if you want a primer in how to debunk left wing rhetoric on the Nordic political model, although Booth turns at last to eulogise his adopted peoples, saying he hopes they don't form a federation, for the rest of us would stand no chance. He would though, wouldn't he: he lives in Denmark with his Danish wife, so in light of that and other evidence in the book, I'd take his proclamation with a slight pinch of salt.