Please visit the Jolabokaflod Google Form to add more personal book recommendation choices for us to include in the Book Bulletin catalogue.

Preface: Catalogue 2025

Iceland

Every year Bókatíðindi, the original Icelandic Book Bulletin, is sent in the post to every household in the country by the native book trade.

This catalogue comprises around 850 new (mainly print) titles that hit the market place in preparation for Jólabókaflóðið (Christmas book flood), whichlaunches every year at the Reykjavik Book Fair in mid November.

For a national population of roughly 396,000 (December 2024), a total of about 850 new books to choose from in the Bókatíðindi is not insignificant for a language spoken in a small territory. Remarkably, however, the Icelandic book trade’s Christmas catalogue includes every single new title in the publication.

United Kingdom

According to Nielsen Book Services, between 180,000 and 200,000 new or revised titles are published in the UK every year, more books per head than anywhere else in the world. For a UK version of Bókatíðindi, the inclusion of so many titles in a Book Bulletin is clearly impossible. This is why the Book Bulletin comprises recommendations from people both inside and outside the book trade, championing great books they would like to share with other readers. Entries to the Book Bulletin catalogue have the merit of being loved by real people.

The Book Bulletin navigational structure online mimics the Bókatíðindi catalogue, which sheds light on Icelanders’ reading preferences and cultural preferences (e.g. separate sections for ‘art and photography’ and ‘history’).

Catalogue 2025

Tell us your recommendations and why you love these book choices by filling out this Google Form.

You can recommend more than one book; you can also endorse books that have already been recommended by other people, which strengthens the objective value of the recommendations.

You can also get involved by volunteering your skills, talents, experience and contacts.

There is only one rule: you cannot recommend books you have written yourself. If you are a self-published author, recommendation your favourite works by other writers and we shall publicise your titles by uploading details and links about your latest books next to your entries.

Summary

We look forward to the coming Book Bulletin cycle full of optimism. Let’s take on board Icelanders’ love of giving, receiving and reading books at Christmas—and take joy in sharing our own passions for books at other special times, too, such as summer vacations.

The Book Bulletin catalogue for 2025 will ensure that book lovers of all ages have plenty of great books to choose from as gifts that will be welcomed and cherished, for Christmas and summer, as well as every other occasion worth celebrating.

Merry ‘book yule’.

CHRISTOPHER NORRIS
Founder and Director
Jolabokaflod CIC