Sarah Moss had a childhood dream of moving to Icel&, sustained by a wild summer there when she was nineteen. In 2009, she saw an advertisement for a job at the University of Iceland & applied on a whim, despite having two young children & a comfortable life in Kent. The resulting adventure was shaped by Iceland`s economic collapse, which halved the value of her salary, by the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull & by a collection of new friends, including a poet who saw the only bombs fall on Iceland in 1943, a woman who speaks to elves & a chef who guided Sarah`s family around the intricacies of Icelandic cuisine. Moss explored hillsides of boiling mud & volcanic craters & learned to drive like an Icelander on the unsurfaced roads that link remote farms & fishing villages in the far north. She watched the northern lights & the comings & goings of migratory birds, & as the weeks & months went by, she & her family learned new ways to live.