Paradise Reclaimed (Random House)

In time for the centenary of Iceland's Nobel laureate and author of Independent People -- his delightful novel of a poor Icelandic farmer's journey to Mormon Utah and back in search of paradise.Steinar of Hlidar is a generous but very poor man, living peacefully on a remote Icelandic farm with his wife and two adoring young children. But when he impulsively offers his children's beloved pure-white pony to the visiting King of Denmark, he sets in motion a chain of disastrous events that leave his family in ruins and himself at the other end of the earth, optimistically building a home for them among the devout polygamists of Utah. By the time the broken family is reunited, Halldor Laxness has spun his trademark blend of compassion and comically brutal satire into a moving and spellbinding enchantment.