The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell (5 stars)

The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country by Helen Russell

The Year of Living Danishly is a smart and fun book about a journalist who moves to Denmark for a year following her husband’s job at LEGO. Denmark is consistently rated as one of the happiest countries in the world and Russell decided to use her time there to investigate why that is.

I loved this book! It was so funny and adorable, it reminded me of Bill Bryson, but without being such a jerk to everyone. There are so many things to love about Denmark and the author’s sense of humor. In the end, I really want to consider living there for a year myself.

Russell does a great job of addressing both the good and bad aspects of Danish culture and what makes them the way they are. Despite listing so many positive things about Denmark, she doesn’t come across as overly sold on living in the country, so she maintains a realistic level of doubt and skepticism throughout.

Her descriptions of the winter months and some of the traditional events she attends are laugh out loud funny. I especially loved her experiences trying to learn the language; “fart kontrol” and “slut spurt” are objectively funny false cognates.

I appreciated that she referred to so many studies and various experts throughout, and I really loved that she asked everyone she interviewed how happy they were on a scale of 1-10 (try it with your friends and coworkers, it’s eye-opening!). I was impressed with the wide range of topics covered from taxes, to childcare, sexism, patriotism, environmental concerns and more.

I loved that the chapters are divided into months of the year and that each one focused on an aspect of Danish living and explored its potential to bring happiness. It was also very useful that she included money conversions so that I didn’t have to always look them up.

Overall this was an awesome book and a quick read. Denmark wasn’t very high on my list but it only took this book to change that.