Jolabokaflod Advent Calendar 2025

Some books don’t ask to be analysed.
They ask only to be held.

Held the way you hold a warm mug on a cold evening. Fingers curved around ceramic. Steam rising toward your face. A soft pause between one small sip and the next. These are the books I think of as hot-chocolate books — stories that warm you from the inside out.

I first noticed this kind of reading on a winter evening when the day had been heavy for no obvious reason. Nothing dramatic. Just one of those tired, emotionally cluttered days that December seems so good at producing. I made hot chocolate almost without thinking, opened a book at random, and somewhere between the sweetness and the softness of the words, I felt my shoulders lower.

That’s when I realised something important:

Comfort reading is not indulgence. It’s restoration.

We live in a world that constantly invites us to optimise even our leisure — to learn more, grow faster, consume smarter. But winter asks something different of us. It asks us to be gentler. It asks us to choose warmth over acceleration. And few things do that as reliably as a truly comforting book.

These are the stories where not much explodes. Where kindness appears quietly. Where the stakes are human rather than heroic. They are perfect companions for evenings when the dark arrives early and the only plan is to stay in.

So today, on Day 4 of our Jolabokaflod Advent journey, I invite you to choose a book the way you might choose a hot drink: not for its prestige, but for how it makes you feel when you take the first sip.

☕ Today’s Reading Picks: “Hot-Chocolate Comfort Reads”

Books that soothe, soften, and wrap you up in story:

• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society — Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
• The Little Paris Bookshop — Nina George
• Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand — Helen Simonson
• The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency — Alexander McCall Smith

These are books you can return to when the world feels a little too sharp around the edges.

You can explore the full Advent Calendar titles here:
👉 Explore the Advent Calendar collection on Bookshop.org

And if you’d like to wander a little further:
👉 Visit the Cosy Winter Fiction Shelf

• The Undesired — Yrsa Sigurðardóttir: You might want to sleep with the light on after reading this book.
• Home Before Dark — Eva Bjorg Ægisdottir: Ppsychological thriller that is dark, chilling and atmospheric.
• Murder on the Orient Express — Agatha Christie: The world’s greatest detective, Hercule Poirot, must identify the prime suspects from among the small but disparate group of remaining passengers– before the murderer decides to strike again.
• Wolf Winter — Cecilia Ekback: Exquisitely suspenseful, beautifully written and highly recommended mystery.
• Snowblind — Ragnar Jónasson: Chilling, thrilling slice of Icelandic Noir.
• In the Midst of Winter — Isabel Allende: Beautifully crafted, multi-generational novel of struggle, endurance and friendship against the odds.
• Beartown — Fredrik Backman: Surefooted insight into the absurdity, beauty and ache of life.
• The Winter People – Jennifer McMahon: Simmering psychological thriller about ghostly secrets, dark choices and the unbreakable bond between mothers and daughters.
• The Great Alone — Kristin Hannah: Unforgettable portrait of human frailty, resilience and American pioneering spirit.
• One by One — Ruth Ware: Sense of dread deepens as the snow falls in tensely plotted and deliciously cast alpine thriller.
• The Land in Winter — Andrew Miller: Novel of dazzling humanity and captivating, crystalline prose.
• City of Thieves — David Benioff: Captivating novel about war, courage, survival and a remarkable friendship that ripples across a lifetime.
• Snow Falling on Cedars — David Guterson: Murder mystery, sweet love story, tale of predjudice and hardship, and a coming to terms with one’s failings.
• Snow Country — Yasunari Kawabata: Work of beauty and strangeness, one of the most distinguished and moving of Japanese novels.
• The Bear and The Nightingale — Katherine Arden: Atmospheric and enchanting, with an engrossing adventure at its core

Tonight, may your book be warm.
May your drink be sweet.
And may the world feel just a little kinder.