Icelandic Roots Book Club Selection For March 2026

Note: The Icelandic Roots Book Club is open to all members at Icelandic Roots. To learn more about membership levels, visit our membership page.

The Icelandic Roots Book Club for Thursday, March 5^th, will feature A Necessary Distance: Confessions of a Scriptwriter’s Daughter with author Julie Salverson.

We can all relate to the excitement, and possible trepidation, of discovering a letter or journal written by family members long after they have departed this mortal coil.  What might we find out?  

In 2014, nine years after her father, George Salverson, Jr.'s death, Julie got up the nerve to open boxes she expected to contain samples of her father’s radio and television scripts. Instead, she discovered seven handwritten notebooks he kept during his three-month filming trip in 1963.

The purpose of the documentary was to support the Freedom from Hunger Campaign. It was shot in over fifteen countries, including Japan, Kenya, Indonesia, India, and Brazil.  However, these notebooks were not drafts for the scripts, but personal reflections on what George felt during this extraordinary experience.  

He had thrown away most of over one thousand radio and television scripts he'd written during his career; why had he saved these?  Was he hoping Julie would read them? This was the beginning of research and reflection about both of their lives. The result was this amazing book, which Allan Stratton so eloquently praised on the book cover as “an absorbing, multilayered read and a wryly amusing excavation of family and cultural assumptions, past and present.”

Reading Julie’s book is like reading a letter from a close friend.  The book has skillfully done what so many of us would like to do – bring to life the story of even one of our ancestors.  In this case, Julie has eloquently written about her father, George Salverson, Jr.  She skillfully weaves her own life into the narrative as she reflects upon her father’s career as an award-winning radio and documentary writer. 

Julie Salverson

What I found particularly engaging is that her structure is not linear and chronological, but moves around in time, from the past to the present. There are even times that we learn something about George’s mother, which connects with Confessions of an Immigrant’s Daughter.  Isn't it always more interesting to get to know someone in bits and pieces as we put the parts together? Rather than having someone sit down beside us at a curling rink, and tell us events in the exact order that occurred, without reflection or contemplation?  

If you have not yet purchased Julie’s book, please note that there is a code for a discount, if you order directly from the publisher: Wolsak & Wynn Publishers Ltd. https://www.wolsakandwynn.ca/authors-all/julie-salverson. The code is NECESSARY25.  I have not heard of this before, but Julie shared this tip with us.

The company has confirmed that in order for it to reach even the most rural addresses in time for our March book club, you’d need to order it by February 18. However, it would not be the first time that book club members read our book after our meeting!

Julie Salverson is a professor, nonfiction writer, playwright, editor, scholar and theatre animator.  She is currently working on the libretto for a musical work that will premiere with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra in Reykjavik in May 2027. The work has been commissioned by Canadian soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan to conclude her first season as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Icelandic composer Hugi Gundmundsson is creating the music to accompany the libretto.

I hope Icelandic Roots members will be able to join us on Thursday, March 5^th at 7 pm CST to share our observations and questions with Julie on Zoom for the Icelandic Roots Book Club.  The link to the gathering will be sent by email the day before.