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WORK TITLE: The Book of Hygge
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://hygge.co/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
Born in Uganda to Danish mother and English father. * http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/2144212/louisa-thomsen-brits
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2016039511
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2016039511
HEADING: Brits, Louisa Thomsen
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100 1_ |a Brits, Louisa Thomsen
670 __ |a The book of hygge, 2017: |b CIP t.p. (Louisa Thomsen Brits) data view (Brits, Louisa Thomsen)
670 __ |a Penguin Random House website, July 21, 2016 |b (Louisa Thomsen Brits is half Danish, half English, a writer and journalist. Born in Africa and brought up in the UK)
PERSONAL
Born in Uganda; children: four.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and journalist.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Born in Uganda to a Danish mother and an English father, Louisa Thomsen Brits grew up in Britain but spent every summer with extended family in Denmark. There she absorbed the Danish habit of “hygge” (pronounced “hoo-gah”), a way of life that affirms wellbeing, belonging, and social connectedness. As a journalist, Brits has brought this sensibility into her work, which has focused on arts, food and dining, and other themes related to the art of living well.
Her first book, The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Living Well, published in the United States as The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Contentment, Comfort, and Connection, draws on the author’s personal understanding of a way of life that has resulted in Denmark being hailed as one of the happiest countries in the world. Indeed, The United Nations World Happiness Report rated Denmark first in happiness in 2012, 2013, and 2016; third in 2015; and second in 2017. As explained in an abstract posted on the report’s Web site, differences in degrees of happiness among diverse regions in the world have much to do with factors such as political freedom, security, income, health, and life expectancy. But in wealthy countries, where such variables are taken for granted, levels of happiness are related more to social conditions: mental health, personal relationships, and a sense of wellbeing. Denmark, among other Scandinavian countries, consistently ranks high in all these qualities.
Published in Britain in 2016, a year of numerous troubling events from the death of pop culture icons Prince and David Bowie to massive death tolls in Syria and Iraq, terrorist attacks in Belgium, Germany, and France, and police killings of unarmed blacks in the United States, The Book of Hygge appeared at a time of intense anxiety about the state of the world, and its message resonated strongly with many readers. As Brits explains in the book, hygge is the Danish term for a feeling of being warm, supported, and welcome within one’s community. The author shows how Danes cultivate this feeling in all aspects of their lives, focusing on simple pleasures and the joys of good relationships rather than more materialistic pursuits. Danes hygger (the verb form of the word) when they light a candle, share a meal with friends, walk along a beach, or just enjoy hot cocoa while snuggling in a warm blanked in front of a fireplace. Hygge even extends to architecture and home decor. As the author explains, Danish residences and vacation homes are built and furnished for simplicity and practicality rather than ostentatious display, and are well-suited for family life and casual socializing. “Openness and empathy both characterize hygge,” Brits writes. “It is an attitude of respect and participation. By giving one another and ordinary activities our wholehearted attention, we begin to live more consciously, moment by moment.”
Unlike some other contemporary books on Danish life, The Book of Hygge does not offer tips, recipes, or other concrete advice on how to hygge. Instead, Brits takes a more philosophic approach, quoting from writers as diverse as Thomas Moore, Soren Kierkegaard, Henry David Thoreau, Simone Weil, Annie Dillard, and British designer Ilse Crawford. The book, said a contributor to the How to Hygge the British Way website, is filled with “little nuggets of information that each call out to be ruminated over, considered, accepted or denied. . . . The book is like a fine wine of hyggerology.” In California Bookwatch a reviewer found The Book of Hygge an informative work that encourages readers “to think about their lives, environments, and self-created purposes.” But London Guardian contributor Zoe Williams expressed a different view, asking whether the joys of hygge come with unacknowledged costs. Citing other recent books about hygge, Williams said there is ample evidence that Danes’ preference for small, intimate social circles often excludes newcomers, and that hunkering down in one’s cozy home can be “homogenous, stultifying, [and] bland.” The reviewer also noted a contradiction in the idea that hygge is at once an elegant design concept but also a predictable and ordinary aesthetic, stating: “This makes no sense as a worldview: you can either . . . hanker after distinction and novelty, or you can’t.” In conclusion, Williams stated: “There is a contradiction at the heart of all human yearning . . . that we all simultaneously want safety and adventure, equality and status, familiarity and excitement, woodsmoke and fresh air. Yet to articulate an ethos in which those conflicts are not simply unresolved, but wafted away with a scented candle, seems slippery and opaque, a set of rules on which every pillar could just as well be turned on its head.” Other readers and commentators, however, found more to admire in The Book of Hygge. Noting the escalating pace and competitiveness of American life, a writer for Publishers Weekly observed that the concept of hygge has become increasingly appealing to American who “may very well find reading Brits’s compact and enjoyable book the literary version of the practice.”
BIOCRIT
BOOKS
Brits, Louisa Thomsen, The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Contentment, Comfort, and Connection, Plume (New York, NY), 2017.
PERIODICALS
California Bookwatch, April, 2017, review of The Book of Hygge.
Guardian (London, England), September, 29, 2016, Zoe Williams, review of The Book of Hygge.
Publishers Weekly, November 21, 2016, review The Book of Hygge, p. 101.
ONLINE
How to Hygge the British Way, https://howtohyggethebritishway.com/ (August 21, 2017), review of The Book of Hygge.
Penguin Books WebSite, http://www.penguin.co.uk/ (August 21, 2017), Brits profile.
Sophie Hicks Ageny WebSite, http://www.sophiehicksagency.com/ (August 21, 2017), Brits profile.
United Nations World Happiness Report Online, http://worldhappiness.report/ed/2017 (August 21, 2017), world happiness rankings abstract.*
ouisa Thomsen Brits is half Danish, half English, a writer and journalist. Born in Africa and brought up in the UK, Louisa spent every summer with family in Denmark, learning the language of hygge to establish a place of belonging wherever she has found herself.
For Louisa, hygge is a quality of presence and togetherness. It’s a daily practice, a way to affirm interconnectedness and enjoy wellbeing. She believes that hygge is an experience of contentment rather than a pursuit of happiness and is about being not having.
As a Dane, hygge is bred in her bones. As an Englishwoman she can comfortably translate the concept and share its universality as an impetus common to us all.
Louisa Thomsen Brits was born in Uganda to a Danish mother and an English father. Now living in East Sussex, she is a mother to four, an amateur naturalist and a wild swimmer. She has been a radio restaurant and arts critic and a tribal bellydance teacher. Louisa is interested in the overlooked details of ordinary lives, liminal places, community and craft. She writes about the art of living, the nature of things, our common life and the rhythms and rituals that unite and define us all.
Her first book The Book of Hygge was published in 2016 in the UK with Ebury and in 2017 in the US with Plume. It has been translated into 11 languages.
Louisa Thomsen Brits: The Cult of Hygge
Venue: The Idler Academy, on Sunday.
Louisa Thomsen Brits is half Danish, half English, a writer, journalist and author of The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Living Well, published by Penguin last year. The cult of Hygge (pronounced ‘hue-gah’) is the Danish philosophy of cosiness and contentment. It encourages a feeling of warmth, comfort, and belonging.
Louisa was born in Africa and brought up in the UK, and spent every summer with family in Denmark, learning the language of hygge to establish a place of belonging wherever she has found herself.
For Louisa, hygge is a quality of presence and togetherness. It’s a daily practice, a way to affirm interconnectedness and enjoy wellbeing. She believes that hygge is an experience of contentment rather than a pursuit of happiness, and is about being not having.
As a Dane, hygge is bred in her bones. As an Englishwoman she can comfortably translate the concept and share its universality as an impetus common to us all.
The Book of Hygge
Louisa Thomsen Brits
California Bookwatch.
(Apr. 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
Full Text:
The Book of Hygge
Louisa Thomsen Brits
Plume
c/o Penguin Group USA
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
9780735214095, $22.00, www.penguin.com
The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Contentment, Comfort, and Connection takes a Danish word for a universal
feeling of been warm, sheltered, and belonging to a community and creates a simple book of advice on how to bring
this concept into one's home and life. Black and white photos and illustrations accompany a discussion of how the
Danish cultivate this feeling in their lives, with chapters reviewing the concept of embracing a sense of place and self
that begins in the home and extends outward. With its clear definitions of detail without constraint and nurturing a
deeper sense of well-being, this book offers invaluable insights and much food for thought and will make an especially
inviting gift for those who would think about their lives, environments, and self-created purposes.
Brits, Louisa Thomsen
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Brits, Louisa Thomsen. "The Book of Hygge." California Bookwatch, Apr. 2017. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA491329198&it=r&asid=1000c94c4812f65c6bf7dc2f0c9c7850.
Accessed 15 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A491329198
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Happy Denmark
Publishers Weekly.
263.47 (Nov. 21, 2016): p101.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
A new trend locates the secret to happiness in one Scandinavian nation.
The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Contentment, Comfort, and Connection
Louisa Thomsen Brits. Plume, $22 (192p) ISBN 978-0-7352-1409-5
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Brits, who's half Danish and half English, considers the Danish practice of hygge (pronounced HYOO-guh), a word
that can be used as noun, verb (hygger), or adjective (hyggelig), in this inviting book that painstakingly explains how
the Danes, "among the happiest people in the world," have woven the concept into their lives. She divides the book into
sections on belonging, shelter, comfort, well-being, simplicity, and observance, with photos by Susan Bell used as
appealing accents throughout. Hygge, Brits explains, can cover a wide variety of experiences, both private moments
such as relaxing with a cup of tea and public moments joining friends for a candlelight dinner or walk on the beach.
Brits shares insights about Danish culture; children are taught hygge early on, and raised with egalitarian values.
Danish furniture also reflects the concept (practicality, simplicity, and quality) and homes are often low-rise buildings
(many Danes, she explains, also own modest summer cottages). In this cultural environment, pomposity, ostentation,
and aggression are neither encouraged nor admired. In increasingly fast-paced and competitive America, hygge has
considerable appeal; readers may very well find reading Brits's compact and enjoyable book the literary version of the
practice. Agent: Sophie Hicks, Sophie Hicks Agency (U.K.). (Feb.)
Happy as a Dane: 10 Secrets of the Happiest People in the World
Malene Rydahl, trans. from the French by Kate Bignold and Luisa Nitrato Izzo. Norton, $14.95 trade paper (144p)
ISBN 978-0-39360892-2
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
In this slim volume, Rydahl, a Danish former corporate executive named the goodwill ambassador of Copenhagen after
her book's initial publication in Europe, provides a primer to the unique attitudes and practices of her homeland. Ten
simple keys characterize the social model: trust, education, freedom and independence, equal opportunity, realistic
expectations, solidarity and respect for others, work-life balance, relationship to money, modesty, and gender equality.
Addressing education, Rydahl asserts that Denmark does not seek to create an elite; free tuition and grants make
schooling accessible to all, and high achievement ranks lower than personal happiness. As to money, she writes that
Danes are quite relaxed, and that being rich is not a priority. The concept of hygge is related to work-life balance, with
the Danes pursuing a friendly and familial intimacy that enhances well-being and adds meaning and purpose to life.
She also makes appealing claims about gender equity in Danish life, stressing that there are few hang-ups about sex and
almost no gender discrimination. Plentiful facts, data, recent sociological research, and personal stories are packed into
this cogent little volume. More journalistic than prescriptive, it will complement the many other "happy Dane" books
reaching the market. Jan.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Happy Denmark." Publishers Weekly, 21 Nov. 2016, p. 101. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA471274000&it=r&asid=79464ef781ad23d35c4cbc4921619951.
Accessed 15 Aug. 2017.
8/14/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
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Gale Document Number: GALE|A471274000
The Book of Hygge review – can the Danes really teach us how to live?
This book, by Louisa Thomsen Brits, is one of many titles on ‘hygge’ and the Danish way of living. But hygge has a dark side – what if the price of ‘cosiness’ isn’t worth paying?
‘Danes prefer to gather in limited numbers rather than in large, expansive groups, to emphasise the unity of their small circles.’
‘Danes prefer to gather in limited numbers rather than in large, expansive groups, to emphasise the unity of their small circles.’ Photograph: Jean Schweitzer/Alamy
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Zoe Williams
Zoe Williams
@zoesqwilliams
Thursday 29 September 2016 02.01 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 2 May 2017 13.38 EDT
“Hygge” sounds from the outside like a meme to allow hipsters to grow old: a Danish mode of being, it has no single, literal translation, which is only to be expected, as it is the source of the Danes’ singular happiness and could only be a wraparound concept. Its baldest definition is “cosiness”, but that expands, according to The Book of Hygge by Louisa Thomsen Brits, to cover “a feeling of belonging and warmth, a moment of comfort and contentment.”
Thomsen Brits, in a self-described “beautiful little book”, which reliably delivers small pages and an incredibly large font, lists some of the things that give us a feeling of hygge; “We hygger” – with an R it becomes an intransitive verb – first thing in the morning “when we light a candle at our breakfast table”. No, really, though: who does that? And “by lighting fires almost every day”. “It is a practice as old as sitting around a fire or sharing food with a friend.” Hygge practices are, broadly, things that we do that our ancestors would recognise; besides lighting fires, eating, drinking, eating cake and drinking things that are hot.
It is not a new thought that activities bring pleasure in inverse proportion to how recently they were invented (Facebook; the cello; reading; keeping a dog as a pet; making bread; having sex). Yet there is certainly a Danish specificity in the prominence of pyromania, and principles crop up repeatedly that are highly specific to the Scandinavian climate. Proverbs swirl: “We have a saying in Denmark that there is no truly bad weather, just bad clothes,” Helen Russell relates, in her unexpectedly winsome memoir, The Year of Living Danishly (Icon, £8.99). Blankets play a huge role. In heavily pictorial books, still lives of slippers are a mainstay.
Hygge – why the craze for Danish cosiness is based on a myth
Read more
The valorisation of the cold is possibly the most distinctive feature of the region, and certainly the least exportable. It reminded me of an exchange I overheard in the Arctic Circle, between a Swedish sled driver and a travel journalist from the Daily Telegraph. The hack was moaning like some southern cissy because his contact lenses had frozen on to his eyeballs, and Sven said: “At least you can protect yourself from the cold. How do you protect yourself from the heat?” “With factor 15,” the blind man replied, “and a pina colada.” You can’t concoct a love of the hearth without a chill wind. If you stay in with the curtains drawn and a hot chocolate on a warm day, that’s not hygge, that’s depression.
Almost as a throwaway, Thomsen Brits mentions elements of Danish life that make them happy yet would go by the more pedestrian name of “social infrastructure”: “Denmark’s high standard of living, decent health care, gender equality, accessible education and equitable distribution of wealth all contribute to the measurable happiness of the Danish people.” But that’s not hygge; your ancestors would not recognise those things, and the sense of belonging is deeper, and stems from immaterial things.
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It has three themes, again according to Thomsen Brits – “interiority, contrast and atmosphere” – and it doesn’t help if you don’t know what they mean. OK, interiority, since you ask “is a perception of being a discrete, bounded presence that exists in relation to others, to place and to the passage of time … Mind, home and country are the interiorities of hygge.” Nope, still nothing. It’s possible that to understand that sort of thing, you need to be someone who gets it before it is said.
One of the most data-rich of the recent profusion of Dane-books, The Little Book of Hygge by Meik Wiking (Penguin Life, £9.99), is the one that gets fastest to the “dark side of hygge”: “Danes are not good at inviting new people into their friendship circles. In part, this is due to the concept of hygge; it would be considered less hyggeligt if there were too many new people at an event. So getting into a new circle requires a lot of effort and a lot of loneliness on the way.”
Russell is more blunt on this point, and describes arriving in January, and wandering through streets, “shops that are either closed or empty and houses that look unoccupied save for the dim flicker of candlelight burning from within”. It is spring before anybody talks to her. “Danes prefer to gather in limited numbers rather than in large, expansive groups, to emphasise the unity of their small circles,” Thomsen Brits writes, concluding “the centripetal force of mutuality, warmth and enthusiasm is sometimes intimidating and impenetrable. Feeling excluded from a group is uncomfortable. Feeling trapped inside one is equally disquieting. There is the downside that the Danish style of socialising could be considered exclusive.”
Is there more to hygge than just having a cup of coffee with a friend?
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Is there more to hygge than just having a cup of coffee with a friend? Photograph: Leonardo Patrizi/Getty Images
Or homogenous, stultifying, bland: books on hygge often include recipes, and there could be no more solid iteration of this tension, that comfort is a hair’s breadth away from boredom. Flour, fat, sugar, jam, more sugar, cinnamon if you’re lucky: Danes consume twice as many sweets as the average European, and it must be down to some internal hygge energy that they aren’t fat. Or maybe it is because they are tall.
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The origins of hygge lie in the implosion of Danish imperialist ambitions in the 19th century, given a positive spin by the philosopher NFS Grundtvig, who argued that the nation’s outward grandeur was less important that the wellbeing of its people, extrapolating from there a very tight culture of nationhood, Norse lore, folk singing, simplicity and cheerfulness. It is laudable from some angles but very narrow from others, and it brings with it the dispiriting implication that such solid and exemplary egalitarianism is made possible by a rigidly demarcated in-group.
Even the most inspiring expressions of modesty and egalitarianism – such as the note, in The Danish Way of Parenting by Jessica Alexander and Iben Dissing Sandahl (Piatkus, £10.99), that “this value of humility is knowing who you are so well that you don’t need others to make you feel important. Therefore, they try not to overload their children with compliments” – lose their lustre when that fellowship is so fixed.
There is a contradiction, too, in the notion of hygge as a design idea – elegant interiors, artful drapes, beauty in the domestic sphere – set against the insistence that it is about simplicity, the quieting of ambition, the respect for predictability and ordinariness, the abnegation of status in favour of togetherness. The “Kähler vase scandal”, described by Wiking, occurred when 16,000 Danes tried to buy a limited edition piece of tableware on the same day, crashing the website. Queues formed outside the shop with the outrage of a breadline. This makes no sense as a worldview: you can either separate importance from trivia, or you can’t; live contentedly on love and carbohydrates, or hanker after distinction and novelty; spend your time with the people who matter, or wait outside a shop.
There is a contradiction at the heart of all human yearning, of course: that we all simultaneously want safety and adventure, equality and status, familiarity and excitement, woodsmoke and fresh air. Yet to articulate an ethos in which those conflicts are not simply unresolved, but wafted away with a scented candle, seems slippery and opaque, a set of rules in which every pillar could just as well be turned on its head.
• The Book of Hygge is published by Ebury. To order a copy for £10.65 (RRP £12.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.