Katherine Martinko ( @feistyredhair) Living / Culture December 21, 2015 CC BY 2.0 Steve Bissonette Book lovers will want to adopt this lovely holiday tradition, which melds literary and holiday pleasures into a single event. Icelanders have a beautiful tradition of giving books to each other on Christmas Eve and then spending the night reading. This custom is so deeply ingrained in the culture that it is the reason for the Jolabokaflod , or “Christmas Book Flood,” when the majority of books in Iceland are sold between September and December in preparation for Christmas giving. At this time of year, most households receive an annual free book catalog of new publications called the Bokatidindi . Icelanders pore over the new releases and choose which ones they want to buy, fueling what Kristjan B. Jonasson, president of the Iceland Publishers Association, describes as “the backbone of the publishing industry.” "It's li...
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