Danes are the happiest people in the world. They say they get there with hygge – coziness. We’ll ask how that works.

A typical "hygge" scene, with warm pastries, soft lighting and a copy of Meik Wiking's "Little Book Of Hygge." (Valerie_bd/Instagram)

Guests

Penelope Green, style reporter for the New York Times. (@greenpnyt)

Meik Wiking, CEO of the Happiness Research Institute and research associate for Denmark at the World Database of Happiness. Author of the new book, “The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way To Live Well.” (@meikwiking)

Abbey Collins, reporter for KHNS news in Haines, Alaska. Former On Point Radio producer. (@abigail_collins)

From Tom’s Reading List

New York Times: Move Over, Marie Kondo: Make Room for the Hygge Hordes — "Denmark frequently tops lists of the happiest countries in the world, in surveys conducted by the United Nations, among other organizations, consistently beating its Scandinavian cousins, Sweden and Norway — as well as the United States, which hovers around 13th place. While all three Nordic countries share happiness boosters like small populations and the attendant boons of a welfare state (free education, subsidized child care and other generous social supports), what distinguishes Denmark is its quest for hygge."

New Yorker: The Year Of Hygge, The Danish Obsession With Getting Cozy — "Winter is the most hygge time of year. It is candles, nubby woolens, shearling slippers, woven textiles, pastries, blond wood, sheepskin rugs, lattes with milk-foam hearts, and a warm fireplace. Hygge can be used as a noun, adjective, verb, or compound noun, like hyggebukser, otherwise known as that shlubby pair of pants you would never wear in public but secretly treasure. Hygge can be found in a bakery and in the dry heat of a sauna in winter, surrounded by your naked neighbors."

The Guardian: The Hygge Conspiracy -- "But for all the earnest cultural analyses, linguistic glosses and quotations from Kierkegaard, it is the images, more or less common in style to each title, that one falls for: hands cupping warm mugs; bicycles leaning against walls; sheepskin rugs thrown over chairs; candles and bonfires; summer picnics; trays of fresh-baked buns. To look at them is to long for that life, that warmth, that peace, that stability – for that idealized, Instagrammable Denmark of the imagination."