The retail cycle each year, from the launch of new books to the reading of these books at Christmas, is known as Jólabókaflóð, which translates roughly into English as ‘Christmas book flood’.
This tradition began during World War II once Iceland had gained its independence for Denmark in 1944. Paper was one of the few commodities not rationed during the war, so Icelanders shared their love of books even more as other types of gifts were short supply. This increase in giving books as presents reinforced Iceland’s culture as a nation of bookaholics – a study conducted by Bifröst University in 2013 found that half the country’s population read at least eight books a year.
Every year since 1944, the Icelandic book trade has published a catalogue – called Bókatíðindi (‘Book Bulletin’, in English) – that is sent to every household in the country in mid-November during the Reykjavik Book Fair. People use the catalogue to order books to give friends and family for Christmas.
During the festive season, gifts are opened on 24 December and, by tradition, everyone reads the books they have been given straight away, often while drinking hot chocolate or alcohol-free Christmas ale called jólabland.
How the Jolabokaflod Book Campaign became
In October 2015, Christopher Norris – a senior executive-level media, publishing and social entrepreneur – was invited by BookMachine to write a regular blog posting for members of this international publishing community to read, having written a well-received piece about the future of publishing: ‘Publishing 2020: an Advent calendar of change‘. As he researched topics to write about, he read an in-depth review in The Bookseller about the book trade in Iceland, ‘In depth: Iceland’s book market‘, and came across Jólabókaflóð for the first time.
As Christopher was a pioneer of World Book Day in the UK, serving on the steering committee for the inaugural event in 1996-7, he realised that the Icelandic tradition of Jólabókaflóð offered a fabulous opportunity to promote book buying and reading within the same initiative, so the seeds of the Jolabokaflod Book Campaign were planted.
Urged on by the BookMachine executive, Christopher launched Jolabokaflod Book Campaign at an RSA Bounce event in London for entrepreneurs in November 2015.
In December 2015, on a business trip to New York, Christopher met with Hlynur Guðjónsson, Consul General and Trade Commissioner at the Consulate General of Iceland in New York, to share the vision of spreading the custom and practice of Jólabókaflóð to the UK and beyond. Mr Guðjónsson gave the Jolabokaflod Book Campaign his endorsement and facilitated contact with Icelandic organisations of potential mutual interest, including embassies and book trade bodies such as the Reykjavik UNESCO City of Literature and the Icelandic Literature Center, both players in annual ‘Christmas book flood’.
At Christmas 2015, the Jolabokaflod Book Campaign encouraged people all over the world to experience the joy of giving books as gifts and reading them over the festive period in a series of published articles and blog postings.
Between March and October 2016, the Jolabokaflod Book Campaign launched its first crowdfunding project at CrowdPatch – called The Icelanders Cometh – which built on the strong connection with Icelandic literature by seeking funds for UK libraries to spend on books published in English by Icelandic authors. The project raised £2365.00, 103% of its target figure.
In November 2016, the Jolabokaflod Book Campaign started a new crowdfunding project, to publish a UK version of the Book Bulletin that captures book recommendations and personal/professional profiles for sharing with people seeking to buy Christmas gifts for their friends and families. This project concluded successfully in February 2017, just after a Gala launch party held at the Hotel Café Royal.
Global interest in the Jolabokaflod Book Campaign at the London Book Fair in March 2017 sparked a year of visiting trade expos to spread the word around the world about the Christmas book flood tradition, notably to BookExpo America in May 2017 and the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2017.
The active Jolabokaflod Book Campaign account at Pinterest captures the spirit of how the Icelandic tradition of Jólabókaflóð is evolving into a global phenomenon.
The Jolabokaflod Book Campaign is on a rapid growth curve, with interest expressed from people everywhere in the book trade and externally. Our founding story is far from complete.
Palmar on December 15th, 2017 at 10:14 UTC »
There is a cultural translation problem here. The conflation if advertising campaigns, seasonal traditions and how we do Christmas in Iceland serves to create this overly romantic idea of an Icelandic tradition.
Jólabókaflóð is just a slogan and has nothing to do with any tradition, unless you consider seasonal marketing tradition. It's obvious why books are advertised and bought before Christmas, they're excellent gifts! It's simply the same reason jewelry, holiday tickets, toys, luxury items and various other gift items sell well before Christmas.
Now let's talk actual tradition. Icelanders hold the festivities of Christmas on Christmas eve, that is the 24th of December. Christmas day (25th) is not really that special at all. Christmas is the biggest holiday of the year, and starts at 6pm on the 24th of December. While family traditions vary, the evening then includes a fairly standard set of activities, such as dinner, opening gifts, some people go to church, and then spending time with family.
Now this is how you get the cultural misrepresentation of calling this a tradition. Someone must have seen traditional Icelandic Christmas, which does in fact include a great dinner, often dessert, chocolate or confectionery and gifts. Then seen people retreat to reading the newly gifted books, and assumed that reading was part of the tradition. While I have certainly read on Christmas eve, my family would be much more likely to play a newly acquired board game. Some people watch movies, play cards, read Christmas cards, just talk, watch TV or yes, read.
The point is, reading is a result of traditions and gift giving, not tradition on it's own. The tradition is something entirely different. Foreign observers are conflating advertising campaigns and traditions to create this misconception.
For some reason half of reddit thinks Iceland is in any way some kind of a special place. It has it's charm, but so does just about every other western nation. I like it here, but let's calm our tits.
biochem-dude on December 15th, 2017 at 08:32 UTC »
I'm from Iceland (32 years old) and I've never heard of this tradition. Jólabókaflóð (christmas-book-flood) refers to the fact that books are (or were) generally published in the few months before christmas.
We give normal gifts, some are books. Some people read while others watch Die Hard or do a Lord of the rings marathon.
This is not an Icelandic thing, sorry. It's probably just a tradition for some families to read the same way watching Die Hard is a tradition for others.
Slab_Happy on December 15th, 2017 at 01:00 UTC »
The night being 23 hours and 57 minutes long, this is very doable.