Marie Tourell Soderberg

I picked this up, having heard of hygge from a friend. I started with the pronunciation, and then kept on reading. The pages are beautifully laid out, and the book itself is a pleasure to read. I was pleasantly surprised by the range of content, with recipes and craft projects included. The interviews with people who are practicing the art of hygge were lovely. I hope to tweak elements of my life to try and incorporate more hygge time, after being inspired by this book.

If this book was meant to be an aesthetic tour, then it accomplished its mission. But it was very, very surface level. There were a few recipes and DIY project instructions, but I didn't get much out of the book beyond "Hygge is extremely important to Danish people because it's cold and dark most of the year." It seems to be best served as a coffee table book to occasionally be flipped to a random page for a quick quote/anecdote for basic hygge inspiration.

This seems to be an effort to capitalize on the popularity of hygge and drawing on the efforts of others who have done it better. It contains a lot of fluff and not much substance. If one is interested in hygge I would suggest The Little Book of Hygge by Meik Wiking instead.