Jolabokaflod

In Iceland, books are exchanged as Christmas Eve presents, then you spend the rest of the night in bed reading them and eating chocolate. The tradition is part of the season called Jólabókaflóð, or ‘Yule Book Flood’, because Iceland, which publishes more books per capita than any other country, sells most of its books between September and November due to people preparing for the upcoming holiday.

This was a really popular tweet and I thought I could expand it into some recommends for the celebration of Jolabokaflod.

The books I’m going to recommend haver a general wintery or christmasy theme and the chocolate are just bloody gorgeous.

As I mentioned on the thread, The Way Past Winter by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, it’s a lovely wintery story with a Scandi feel to it and the hard back edition is beautiful.

Others have mentioned Northern Lights by Philip Pullman, another wintery delight with lots of snow and armoured polar bears, especially apt for Iceland, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis continues the snowy theme, but the person did want to swap chocolates for Turkish delight, perfectly reasonable in my view.

Others went with books that are their comfort reads or a classic, Lee Child got a few mentions and Kite Runner got a mention.

Others I would recommend as great wintery reads are; The Snow Spider by Jenny Nimmo, The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson, Sky Song by Abi Elphinstone, The Shining by Stephen King, The Snowman by Jo Nesbo, and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon

As for chocolate choices there are several, all of them so yummy, but not too dark as to set me buzzing with caffeine 🙂

The first is produced by The Chocolate Society and it is their Blonde Chocolate & Sea Salt Bar, so moreish especially if you liked Caramacs, still light but very tasty.

Next are the Sea Salted Caramel Fudge Discs from our local patisserie, Robineau.

Last but not least are the White Chocolate Pistachios with Cardamon and Rose from Rococo, these are so delicious that we’ve never been able to stop ourselves from eating the whole bag in one sitting.

Have you any recommendations? Whether they are books, chocolates or traditions please let us know.