For the love of cod : a father and son's search for Norwegian happiness
(Book)

"Eric Dregni takes his son on a return trip to Norway--the country where he was born fifteen years earlier--to investigate whether it really is the happiest country on Earth"--,Provided by publisher.

Norway is usually near or at the top of the World Happiness Report. But is it really one of the happiest countries on Earth? Eric Dregni had his doubts. Years ago he and his wife had lived in this country his great-great-grandfather once fled. When their son Eilif was born there, the Norwegian government paid for the birth, gave them $5,000, and deposited $500 into their bank account every month, but surely happiness was more than a generous health care system. What about all those grim months without sun? When Eilif turned fifteen, father and son decided to go back together and investigate. For the Love of Cod is their droll report on the state of purported Norwegian bliss. Arriving in May, a month of festivals and eternal sun, the Dregnis are thrust into Norway at its merriestand into the reality of the astronomical cost of living, which forces them to find lodging with friends and relatives. But this gives them an inside look at the secrets to a better life. Its not the massive amounts of money flowing from the North Sea oil fields but how these funds are distributed that fuels the Norwegian version of democratic socialismresulting in miniscule differences between rich and poor. Locals introduce them to the principles underlying their avowed contentment, from an active environmentalism that translates into flyskam (flight shame), which keeps Norwegians in the family cabin for the long vacations prescribed by law and charges a 150 percent tax on gas guzzlers (which, Eilif observes, means more Teslas seen in one hour than in a year in Minnesota!). From a passion for dugnad or community volunteerism and sakte or {28}slow,