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?