When fellowship inIcelandgather on a crispChristmasEve , there are several of import traditions to observe . First comes a heartyChristmas meal(smoked lamb , ferment and pickled fish , all washed down with a questionable cocktail of malted beer and Orange River soda ) , followed by Christmas mass at 6 p.m. shrewd and then , of line , the books .
In Iceland , where a vibrant literary culture has fly high since the Middle Ages , the most popular Christmas gift is a book . Toddlers get bedtime picture books , adolescent get the latest John Green tearjerker translate into Icelandic , and adults are indue a stack of bestselling Nordic crime novel and obscure ego - published non - fable .
The Christmas Eve al-Qur’an - giving tradition is the closing of a months - long national literary festivity calledjólabókaflóðor the " Christmas Book Flood . " In September , the Iceland Publishers Association get off a book catalogue call theBókatíðindito every home in Iceland ( pasture theBókatíðindi 2018 ) . And from the here and now the catalog arrives until Christmas Eve , all of Iceland is transfix with book - purchasing febricity .
Gísli Gíslason is a biology prof at the University of Iceland in the uppercase Reykjavik . Born in 1950 , he was among first coevals to develop up with the Christmas Book Flood custom . During World War II , one of the only imports to Iceland that was n’t severely restricted or expensive was paper , so peopleturned to books as gifts .
" As long as I can remember , I ’ve always experience al-Qur’an on Christmas and I ’ve always given books to my family , " says Gíslason . " You get other talent as well , but there always has to be at least one Word of God . "
Gíslason says that from September until December , record book seem to be everywhere . If you take the air into a grocery store in Reykjavik , right next the produce aisle is a vast table , maybe 50 animal foot long , covered with stacks of books . And that ’s in addition to those for sale in all of the account book stores .
What ’s really remarkable about the Christmas Book Flood is that all of the books in the fall catalog have been published that year , and a unbalanced amount of them are written by Icelanders . This is a country of just348,000 peopleand virtually no one speak Icelandic outside of Iceland . Yet every twelvemonth , the Icelandic publishing industry puts out five new books for every 1,000 multitude , most of them written in Icelandic . The fair mark ladder of 1,000 copy would be equivalent to betray 1 million copies in the U.S.
Like his fellow Icelanders , Gíslason says that he reads books all class around , not just during the holiday season . historian trace the Icelandic love of lit back to the 12th and 13th century C.E. , when Icelandic authors and poets wrote the firstsagas , dramatic stories of hero , kings and vehement conflict that have been compared to " Beowulf , " " The Iliad " and " The Canterbury Tales . "
Since the Icelandic voice communication has remained relatively unaltered since the first Norse settlers arrived on the island res publica in the recent 9th 100 C.E. , Icelanders have been study and treasuring these same stories for a millenary . Not only do Icelanders love to read , but they love to save . It ’s guess thatone in 10 Icelanderswill write a book in their lifetime . There ’s even a popular locution , " ad ganga med bok I maganum , " translate literally as " everyone has a book in their tum . "
In Iceland , presents are traditionally exchanged and opened on Christmas Eve . The kids go first , of course , with some of the littlest ones receiving their very first Christian Bible . Then it ’s the adults ' turn , say Gíslason , each member of the family receiving at least one or two book .
" You take the book with you to bottom and read it before you kip , " allege Gíslason . " And then you wake up up on Christmas morning and keep on reading . "
