I was interested when I heard there was a book coming out about Snorri Sturluson. As a roleplaying geek, knowing about Norse mythology is obligatory, but while I knew the name Snorri Sturluson in association with the Edda, I didn’t really have any context. That gap was enough for me to put Song of the Vikingson my “long list;” you know, the books you’ll get to, probably this year, but when you feel like it. When I saw that the book’s preface was about J.R.R. Tolkien arguing with C.S. Lewis, I moved it off my long list and to the top of my “short stack.” I was not disappointed; this book quite honestly rocks. Accessible enough to be read as a page turner, but rigorous enough to have some teeth, it hits the non-fiction sweet spot, not so readable as to be one of those trade non-fiction books dismissed as “a long magazine article” but not so academic as to become an impenetrable wall of text. Plus, vikings! Odin! Thor and Loki! Not to mention all the Snorri family drama you could ask for.
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