A celebrated Danish writer explores the unsung histories and geographies of her beloved slice of the world . Me, my notebook and my love of the wild and desolate. I wanted to do the opposite of what was expected of me. It’s a recurring pattern in my life. An instinct. Dorthe Nors’s first nonfiction book chronicles a year she spent traveling along the North Sea coast―from Skagen at the northern tip of Denmark to the Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea. In fourteen expansive essays, Nors traces the history, geography, and culture of the places she visits while reflecting on her childhood and her family and ancestors’ ties to the region as well as her decision to move there from Copenhagen. She writes about the ritual burning of witch effigies on Midsummer’s Eve; the environmental activist who opposed a chemical factory in the 1950s; the quiet fishing villages that surfers transformed into an area known as Cold Hawaii starting in the 1970s. She connects wind turbines to Viking ships, thirteenth-century church frescoes to her mother’s unrealized dreams. She describes strong waves, sand drifts, storm surges, shipwrecks, and other instances of nature asserting its power over human attempts to ignore or control it. Through a deep, personal engagement with this singular landscape, A Line in the World accesses the universal. Its ultimate subjects are civilization, belonging, and change: changes within one person’s life, changes occurring in various communities today, and change as the only constant of life on Earth. “[A] luminous set of reflections. . . . An intricate reckoning with a world that, despite our best attempts to tame it, remains elemental and wild.” ― Kirkus Reviews , starred review “ A Line in the World is . . . one of the first books to capture the unique region in English. In prose that is as sparse and quiet as the marshy Jutland peninsula itself, the book provides a snapshot of life in a location that is full of history and at the same time ever-shifting, its future uncertain.” ―Courtney Tenz, The Washington Post An immediacy and an intimacy filter through [Nors's] spare, brilliant prose about the region’s history, shipwrecks and other stories. The reader becomes immersed in Nors’s interior weather as well as the harsh external elements of the rugged Jutland Peninsula.” ―S. Kirk Walsh, New York Times Book Review “Ms. Nors is ever on the hunt for the secret seams of passion―whether from terror or jubilation―beneath the stark surface of the land and behind the faces of its button-lipped inhabitants. . . . The tone here, in Caroline Waight’s translation, is gentle and considered. It has clearly been [Nors’s] intention to avoid both tourist gawking and big-city condescension, and the result is both revealing and respectful. . . . Beautiful.” ―Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal “A revelation. In 14 eloquent, observant essays that combine journalism, nature writing and memoir, Nors paints a vivid portrait of a remote and rugged territory whose striking scenery masks more than its share of dangers. . . . A Line in the World will appeal to a wide audience of discerning and curious readers.” ― Shelf Awareness “Languorous and evocative. . . . The dramas of the past are evoked not so much through individual characters as through their traces―buildings, ruins, shipwrecks . . . ancient landscapes steeped in myth. . . . Nature is at the heart of this beautiful book.” ―Claire Messud, Harper's “The tight bond between place and people forms the backbone of this evocative and haunting book, which reminds the reader at every turn that permanence is not promised.” ― Booklist “A masterpiece of place-based nonfiction. . . . Nors claims this landscape as worthy of literature, claims nature writing for women.” ―Nichole LeFebvre, On the Seawall “[Nors] orients herself among dust and dirt, sea and sand, brilliantly capturing specks of memories which dance in the light, however briefly. Like W.G. Sebald’s narrator in The Emigrants , who watches dust dance in the projector light, Nors documents how the past haunts the present.” ―Elizabeth McNeill, Chicago Review of Books “In this rather unusual collection, which intertwines subjects as disparate as Viking history, modern surfing, and ancient church frescoes, Nors has written a powerful, authoritative masterpiece.” ―Laura Albritton, Harvard Review “Each essay offers an exquisite, layered exploration of a different stretch of that wild North Sea coast. . . . A Line in the World is no ordinary travel memoir, and its line connects the stories of each place like living tissue. Nors observes what others would not, mixing memory, history, nature, culture, and journalism in a deeply personal exploration of Danish geography.” ―Samantha Siefert, Asymptote “[A] poetic chronicle of her time spent along Denmark’s North Sea coast. . . . Nors’s portrait of her connection to a landscape both ‘harsh and mild’ enchants.” ― Publishers Weekly “A stunning