Reddit mentions of The Long Ships (New York Review Books Classics)

It might be The Long Ships, originally written by Frans G. Bengstsson.

>Frans Gunnar Bengtsson’s The Long Ships resurrects the fantastic world of the tenth century AD when the Vikings roamed and rampaged from the northern fastnesses of Scandinavia down to the Mediterranean. Bengtsson’s hero, Red Orm—canny, courageous, and above all lucky—is only a boy when he is abducted from his Danish home by the Vikings and made to take this place at the oars of their dragon-prowed ships. Orm is then captured by the Moors in Spain, where he is initiated into the pleasures of the senses and fights for the Caliph of Cordova. Escaping from captivity, Orm washes up in Ireland, where he marvels at those epicene creatures, the Christian monks, and from which he then moves on to play an ever more important part in the intrigues of the various Scandinavian kings and clans and dependencies. Eventually, Orm contributes to the Viking defeat of the army of the king of England and returns home an off-the-cuff Christian and a very rich man, though back on his native turf new trials and tribulations will test his cunning and determination. Packed with pitched battles and blood feuds and told throughout with wit and high spirits, Bengtsson’s book is a splendid adventure that features one of the most unexpectedly winning heroes in modern fiction.

Yup, this one: http://www.amazon.com/Ships-Review-Books-Classics-ebook/dp/B003WUYOP2/

They just announced it's being made into a film: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-a-better-world-girl-526159

Here's an excellent lecture series I listened to recently: http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=3910

(Don't be put off by the price. Teaching Company stuff goes on sale all the time, usually for around 75% off.)

Great! I'm happy you like the book suggestion; if you are a book person you should love it. Just don't hate me when you get to the... porridge part. Only the first book really takes place in Sweden (in the others they've crossed into America), so from a strict preparation perspective you would only need to read that. But if you should happen to like the series and read it all, then know that it has been made into both a movie and a musical.

Since you seem interested in this kind of stuff, here's a few more readings you could do:

• One about vikings; this is much more loosely connected to reality, but it's a great and raucous tale and surely there's something about Swedish mentality in there.
  
  
• One that was actually comissioned to be a children's geography book; this will maybe feel a little dated, but if you read it with a map on your coffee-table you will get a colorful view of the land.
  
  
• One about poor, hardworking people in early industrial Stockholm. This is set some 50-75 years after The Emigrants, when Sweden is industrialising, and written in maybe something of the same "earthy epic" style. If you should like it then you can go on with a whole series. There are walks and sites for this in Stockholm as well.
  
  Do come back and talk to us when you know where the wedding is.
  
  And thanks for the US advice offer, though we've pretty much done our year of research on that. About half finished reading this by now. =)

The Long Ships (aka Red Orm)!

http://www.amazon.com/Long-Ships-Saga-Viking-Age-ebook/dp/B003WUYOP2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394084543&sr=8-1&keywords=the+long+ships