This Iceland tradition fits well with what dad and I like to give for Christmas - books!!!
https://thebluestockingsalon.com/2017/1 ... source=B_1
Jólabókaflóð has its roots in World War II, when wartime restrictions on imported goods severely limited Icelanders’ gift options for the Christmas season. Import restrictions and taxes were much lower on paper than most other items, making books an affordable holiday gift. As many of the restrictive laws stayed in place after the war, the book-giving habit stuck, becoming so popular that today the majority of books sold in Iceland are sold between September and December, in preparation for the giving season.
Where does the flood come in? Well, demand usually fuels supply; in Iceland, the majority of new books published every year are published in preparation for the holiday season. In fact, Icelanders have their very own book catalog: Bokatidindi. Published annually by the Iceland Publishers Association and mailed for free to every household in the country, Bokatidindi contains all of the new books published in Iceland for that year. According to researcher Baldur Bjarnason, “It’s like the firing of the guns at the opening of the race. It’s not like this is a catalog that gets put in everybody’s mailbox and everybody ignores it. Books get attention here.”
For a nation with a population of just over 332,000 people, Iceland has what some might call an outsized literary appetite. (As if that was even possible!) 93% of Icelanders read more than one book a year, and 50% read more than eight books a year. By comparison, in 2015, only 72% of Americans had read a book…and they didn’t necessarily finish it. 10% of Icelanders will actually publish a book during their lifetime, and in 2009, book loans at Reykjavik City Library exceeded 1 million…in a city with 200,000 residents. In fact, Reykjavik is one of twenty-eight UNESCO Cities of Literature. The United States, with a population of more than 325 million, has only two: Iowa City, home to the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and Seattle, home to the Book Discounter Who Must Not Be Named.
“‘If you look at book sales distribution in the U.K. and the States, most book sales actually come from a minority of people. Very few people buy lots of books. Everybody else buys one book a year if you’re lucky,’ Bjarnason says. ‘It’s much more widespread in Iceland. Most people buy several books a year. ’” And Icelanders aren’t just reading a lot of books; they’re also talking about a lot of books. “‘Even now, when I go the hairdressers, ’ Kristin Vidarsdottir, manager of the Unesco City of Literature project, says, ‘they do not want celebrity gossip from me but recommendations for Christmas books.’”