Iceland is experiencing a book boom . It is hard to avoid writers in Reykjavik. There is a phrase in Icelandic, "ad ganga med bok I maganum", meaning everyone gives birth to a book. Literally, everyone "has a book in their stomach". One in 10 Icelanders will publish one. "Does it get rather competitive?" I ask the young novelist, Kristin Eirikskdottir. "Yes. Especially as I live with my mother and partner, who are also full-time writers. But we try to publish in alternate years so we do not compete too much." "Writers are respected here," Agla Magnusdottir tells me. "They live well. Some even get a salary." Magnusdottir is head of the new Icelandic Literature Centre, which offers state support for literature and its translation. "They write everything --- modern sagas , poetry, children's books, literary and extraordinary fiction --- but the biggest boom is in crime writing," she says. So what has led to this phenomenal book boom? I would say it is due to a crop of good writers, telling interesting tales with elegant economy and fantastic characters. Iceland's black lava  riverbeds, its steaming, bubbling earth, with its towering volcanoes and fairytale streams also make it the perfect setting for stories. Solvi Bjorn Siggurdsson, an Icelandic novelist, says writers owe a lot to the past. "We are a nation of storytellers. When it was dark and cold we had nothing else to do," he says. "Thanks to the poetic works and medieval  sagas, we have always been surrounded by stories. After independence from Denmark in 1944, literature helped define our identity." Siggurdsson shows respect to Iceland's Nobel Literature winner, Halldor Laxness, whose books are sold in petrol stations and tourist centres across the island. Locals name their cats after Laxness and pay a visit to his home. "When Laxness won the Nobel Prize in 1955 he put modern Icelandic literature on the map," Siggurdsson tells me. "He gave us confidence to write." What kind of book is the most popular in Iceland?
Poetry. Medieval sagas. Crime novels. Children's stories.