The Christmas Book Flood

While we are trimming our trees, hanging our stockings, and getting ready for a visit from Santa Claus, the residents of Iceland are preparing for their own special holiday tradition--Jólabókaflóð, or Christmas Book Flood.  

The majority of the publishing in Iceland occurs between September and December, and a massive catalog of books--the Bókatíðindi--is available to everyone to peruse and make their selections.  Books are considered one of the greatest gifts to give, and most families exchange them on Christmas Eve, and then settle in for a long night of cozy reading.

Here are some of our favorite Icelandic authors and books about Iceland.  Check one out today and start your own winter reading tradition!

Under the Glacier by Halldór Laxness 

A young Icelandic priest is sent to investigate the pastor at remote Snaefells Glacier and uncovers a mysterious and wild community full of phantasmagoria and eccentricity, in a provocative novel by the late Nobel laureate.








Jar City: A Reykjavik Thriller by Arnaldur Indridason

Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson heads up the investigation into the killing of a solitary man, found murdered in his Reykjavik apartment, only to discover that the victim has only two friends, one in prison and one missing for twenty-five years, and that the dead man had been accused but not convicted of a rape forty years earlier.  







The Whispering Muse by Sjón

Invited to sail on a Danish merchant ship in 1949, eccentric Icelander, Valdimar Haraldsson, discovers the second mate on the ship is none other than Caeneus, the hero of Greek mythology, who regales his fellow shipmates with tales of the Golden Fleece.








Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

Based on the true story of the last woman to be executed in Iceland in 1829, a young woman accused of murdering her master is sent to an isolated rural farm to await execution and tells the farmer's family her side of the story








Sagas of the Icelanders

Published in conjunction with the 1,000th anniversary of Leif Eriksson's voyage to America, the medieval Viking "Sagas" commemorate the adventures of the people who first settled Iceland and then braved the perils of the north Atlantic to explore Greenland and North America, in a volume that includes a preface by Jane Smiley.






Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland by Sarah Moss

Novelist Sarah Moss had a childhood dream of moving to Iceland, sustained by a wild summer there when she was nineteen. In 2009, she saw an advertisement for a job at the University of Iceland and applied on a whim, despite having two young children and a comfortable life in an English cathedral city. The resulting adventure was shaped by Iceland's economic collapse, which halved the value of her salary, by the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull and by a collection of new friends.