Jolabokaflod

Christmas Book Flood • Reading for Pleasure


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Christmas book flood 2023

The tidal wave is coming

Every year in Iceland a new tidal wave of books crashes onto the nation’s beaches for citizens to become aware of via the Bókati∂indi (Book Bulletin) printed catalogue, a copy of which is sent in the post to every home address in the country.

The catalogue always features around 800 newly published book titles across a full range of different categories and genres for fiction, non-fiction and children’s books.

You can download your copy by clicking the Download button on the PDF link above.

Here is the full-length A4-size front cover for this year’s Bókati∂indi catalogue…

The English translation for the Icelandic phrase “Getur þú hu qui∂ þór jól ∂u bóka?” – displayed on the cover on the roof under where Santa and his singular reindeer is parked – equates to “Can you book a book for Christmas?” or, more eloquently, “Can you procure a book for Christmas?”

By way of a little AI image generator fun, here are a couple of dream-like compositions DALL-E 3 wrangled with the prompt for the Yule Lads to be reading books washed up on an Icelandic beach as a result of the annual book flood tidal wave.

Is there a real beach in Iceland with these rock formations or are the landscapes in these images a figment of DALL-E 3’s febrile imagination?


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Book your recommendations with Book Bulletin: Winter 2018

This winter’s opportunity to tell the world about your favourite books, yourself and your projects is now open. By contributing to the Book Bulletin 2018 crowdfunding campaign at CrowdPatch, you are paying for space in the catalogue to display your book recommendations and to promote yourselves and your company, organisation and projects.

Each book recommendation can be purchased from book retailers by clicking through title-specific links in the Book Bulletin catalogue.

The Book Bulletin 2018 campaign started officially on 27 October 2018 (‘The First Day of Winter‘ in the Old Nordic calendar), covers the Christmas holiday period, and concludes on International Book Giving Day (14 February 2018, St Valentine’s Day).

We recommending buying, giving, reading and contributing to Jolabokaflod CIC, to capture a new spirit of Christmas.

Note: For those of you who are native speakers, here is this year’s Bókati∂indi (the original Book Bulletin), the catalogue of newly published Icelandic titles for Jólabókaflóðið in 2018.