Jolabokafloð Advent Calendar 2025

There is a particular kind of reading that belongs to firelight.

Even if you don’t have a real fireplace, you know the feeling. A single lamp turned low. Shadows moving softly across the room. The sense that the day has finally loosened its grip. Fireplace fiction is not about flames — it’s about atmosphere.

I discovered this kind of reading one winter evening when the house felt unusually quiet. The lamp was warm rather than bright. Outside, the night pressed close to the windows. I opened a book almost absent-mindedly — and found myself reading more slowly than usual, lingering over sentences, letting the mood seep in before the plot did.

That is the magic of fireplace fiction:

It invites immersion rather than momentum.

These are the stories that glow rather than dazzle. The ones where place matters deeply. Where weather, interiors, and silence play supporting roles. They are books that seem to say, Stay here. There’s no need to rush.

Fireplace fiction pairs beautifully with winter because both ask the same thing of us: attention. Not frantic focus, but gentle presence. The kind that notices how the room feels. How the language sounds. How time stretches when we stop trying to fill it.

Today, on Day Eight of our Jolabokafloð Advent Calendar, I invite you to create your own Fireplace Fiction Night. Light a candle. Lower the lights. Let the outside world fall back just a little — and step into a story that knows how to glow.

🔥 Today’s Reading Picks — “Fireplace Fiction”

Atmospheric stories best enjoyed by lamplight:

• Rebecca — Daphne du Maurier
• Death at the Sanatorium — Ragnar Jónasson
• The Night Circus — Erin Morgenstern
• The Essex Serpent — Sarah Perry

These are books that reward slow reading and quiet rooms.

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

And if you’d like to stay in this mood a little longer:
👉 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, don’t aim to read far.
Aim to read deeply.
And let the story glow long after you close the book.