Island Soul: A Memoir of Norway

• Paperback - May, 2004 - Island Soul Books
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• By: Patti Jones Morgan
• ISBN: 097527824X

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Reviews by readers

Charming and delightful

Reading Island Soul put me into a quandary: did I want to race to the finish to see what happened to the author in her struggles as a foreigner trying to belong on Karm�y Island? Or did I want to slow down and linger, the better to savor every word? Patti Jones Morgan has written a charming and delightful account of being transplanted to a little-known island in Norway and has shared her soul with us in the pages. The book feels cozy and warm, like sharing good talks with a close friend, yet often her observations strike one as richly nuanced and resonant, revealing a poet's soul. She is also in possession of a rare tweaking sense of humor about people and society which will give the reader a good laugh without bile. This book should appeal strongly to a good cross-section of reader interests, since it concerns travel, cultures, human interest stories, language, Scandinavia, and creativity (the author is a writer and an artist), just to name a few. I recommend it unreservedly as a charming book to warm the soul and let's hope we hear more from this fine author!

Review of Island Soul

This was an extremely well written book. I felt as though I were on the island with the author. I would thoroughly recommend it--great reading.

Shangri-La, Norwegian style

I have a feeling that many people who read "Island Soul" would like to move to Karmoy, the peaceful little island off the coast of Norway which, with its people, is the star of this story.

Maybe that's a post-9/11 reaction. But in the midst of all that's going on around us, Karmoy seems like the Shangri-La of the 21st century.

Patti Jones Morgan has a nice eye in spotting the idiosyncracies, the lifestyles, the joys and the trials which make up the culture of the people of Karmoy, and she has a nice style in relating them. And she does it with a quiet but funny sense of humor, which befits both the island and her book.

And friend, if you've ever traveled overseas for any length of time, as I have, you'll appreciate her struggles as she works ever so hard to master the Norwegian language. Uff-da, as the Norwegians say.

The book is worth a read, maybe on a rainy day over a cup of coffee. After all, Patti writes accurately enough, "Sometimes a mere hot cup of coffee indoors out of the rain tastes like nectar." And the book will add flavor to the coffee.

One more thought: Patti wrote the book in 2000. She would have no way of knowing the eerie feeling she generates when she tells of a seemingly innocuous incident in the Oslo airport when she was patted down during a routine search for drugs. "My heart skipped a beat," she writes, "as I visualized the agent's reaction if she found my little plastic bag of white powder."

In view of the news today, again I say, "Uff-da."

But I also say hooray to Patti for coming up with an interesting and insightful book about the people of and the peaceful place called Karmoy.

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