Book Mooch

Book Mooch is a site that I stumbled across some months back and it proved incredibly useful when I was living in Denmark.

The idea behind the site is that you list the books that you are willing to part with on the site, stating whether you are happy to send them anywhere in the world, or just within your own country. Each book that you register on the site earns you one point. People interested in a book you have listed contact you through the website to "mooch" the book. If you agree to send it to them, two points are deducted from their total and are added to yours - or three points if they do not live in your country. You then post the book to them, paying the postage costs yourself. But with the points that you have earned first from listing the book and then from sending it, you can "mooch" books from others on the site.

The joy of Book Mooch is that no money is involved between members, eliminating the disputes that can arise on other sites For me in Denmark there was another, quite considerable advantage: VAT in Denmark is 25% and books are liable for full VAT, whereas in Sweden, which also has 25% VAT, books are only taxed at 6%.

Having now been a member for more than six months and had total success, so far, with all my mooches, I can highly recommend the site.

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My new second home

This weekend I went along to Stockholm city library - Stockholms stadsbibliotek (limited website in English, full site in Swedish), which is only about three blocks away from where we are living, and I found a fantastic place of refuge should I ever need to get away for an hour or two...

The fiction section of the library sits in the centre of the building, in the rotunda. I had seen pictures of it before but it still wowed me when I walked in. Also, the English-language fiction section is pretty large as well: I only got as far as L but I had already grabbed three books and seen a handful more that I will go back for.

For those living in Stockholm, all you need to do is fill in the online form, pop down to the library with some id and they'll give you a library card and you're ready to start borrowing - simple!

"The advantage of living abroad..."

"The advantage of living abroad is that, coming in contact with the manners and customs of the people along whom you live, you observe them from the outside and see that they have not the necessity which those who practise them believe. You cannot fail to discover that the beliefs which to you are self-evident to the foreigner are absurd."

Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham

Book review – Modern-Day Vikings

I recently finished reading Modern-Day Vikings: A Practical Guide to Interacting with the Swedes by Christina Johansson Robinowitz and Lisa Werner Carr. The book provides a brief history of the country and sets out to explain Swedish social democracy (‘cradle to the grave’ system) and cultural concepts such as lagom and jantelagen.

The book is aimed mainly at people moving to and doing business in Sweden from the USA, so perhaps they would see the cultural differences as more extreme than someone from elsewhere in Europe. Nonetheless, it seems to be a very useful guide that offers some insight into the country and its culture.

For me, reading it was a positive experience too after all the depressing statistics I had seen in previous weeks, as it suggested that maybe things will not be as complicated as I have made them to be in my head: my protection mechanism of always thinking through what the worst case scenario could be, so there is always upside – I guess I am a ‘glass is half empty’ girl then…

Back to the book: in one way I cannot say how useful the book actually is until I come to rely on what it is told me and put it to practical use next year but it was an interesting read. I would recommend it anyway, just for its descriptions of lagom and jantelagen – two rather complicated concepts for those who have not grown up in Scandinavia – and of the Swedish social system and culture.