The Coffee of Civilization in Iceland
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
You'll certainly get a feel for why they drink coffee.
[0] e.g. http://www.amazon.com/Heaven-Hell-Jon-Kalman-Stefansson/dp/1...
I visited Iceland a few years ago, and while I was there for only 10days or so (and drove the length of the ring-road that encircles it), have an overwhelming memory of terrible American drip-style coffee. I wonder if that was coffee made for tourism or a reaction to ordering in English not Icelandic. Makes me hope so, so I can return and try again.
> In this case, though, I’ll indulge just a little because, although a newcomer to the country, I am an old-comer to the culture: my mother-in-law, still with us at ninety-five, is as Icelandic as could be and, although Canadian Icelanders are not exactly the same as the homespun kind, they are still almost indistinguishable from the natives.
So many non-essential dependent clauses. Every other sentence is like this: fifty sentences and over one hundred commas. Who thinks this is good style?
My reaction to the article was to make a nice cup of coffee.
Taking into account the proclivities and interests of the Hacker News audience, perhaps you would be interested in reading an excellent, recent profile of Apple's Jony Ive at The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/shape-things-co...
I encountered this kind of style very often when reading French classics of the 19th century. I'm French BTW, and the modern mantra of "sentences must be short and convey only one idea" is still not as strongly followed here as it seems to be in the US.