As a bookworm growing up, who honors his past more in the breach than the practice, I was delighted to run across this LinkedIn article by Glenn Leibowitz:
The folks in Iceland, by contrast, observe a very different gift-giving tradition. Rather than obsess over exchanging electronic gadgets, DNA testing kits, and Keurig Coffee Makers, they give each other more entertaining, and also more intellectually and emotionally enriching items: Books. …
Icelanders’ devotion to reading is most evident in a remarkable tradition they observe: Between September and November, publishers launch a book publishing tsunami known as the Jolabokaflod, which in English translates roughly into the “Christmas Book Flood.” The annual Flood kicks-off with the printing of the Bokatidindi, a catalog of new publications distributed free to every Icelandic home, courtesy of the Iceland Publishers Association (of course).
On Christmas eve, Icelanders exchange books as gifts and then spend the night reading them, often while drinking hot chocolate or alcohol-free Christmas ale called jólabland. “The culture of giving books as presents is very deeply rooted in how families perceive Christmas as a holiday,” Kristjan B. Jonasson, president of the Iceland Publishers Association, told NPR.
Totally lovely. A devotion to books, particularly a variety, is a devotion to knowledge, a sign of the importance of wondering, thinking, answering, and coming up with more questions – the marks of nations devoted to tolerance, peace, and wisdom.
I received a book on how to cook and a book on cities over the holidays, and I’m frantically trying to keep up with all my other reading as well. I hope you are doing as well – or better.
