Kicking off #Booksgiving for 2025

I keep doing this in celebration of the joy that books, stories, and reading bring me all 365 days of the year. You'll see if you follow the link just how much pleasure this annual event brings me.

The Icelandic Jólabókaflóð is an annual custom of giving to, recieving from, and reading with, a book to your loved ones on Christmas Eve. I'd love to believe that custom is spreading in 2025 because books are some of the few items inexpensive enough to make sense as gifts in this recession. Even the expensive illustrated books are, comparatively, cheap when tariffs are biting budgets. Over $100 added to the average Yule shopper's 2025 expenditures just for tariffs.

It makes sense to emulate Miss Dolly Parton in giving books to children, every chance you get but particularly when their attention is so highly fractured by everything going on in their world. I've picked some of the most fun-for-me to read and look at picture books as ideas for you to gift to the niblings/grands in your life. Starter links:

Juvenile non-fiction
Juvenile books in total
middle-grade literature.

Their older sibs need reading material, too: YA across genres including our queer youth.

Need something for a guy? A stereotypical gift for a man you don't know well, or one you do and know what lind of STEM reaging he does? A few jumping-off points:
Cars.
Booze/drinking.

Always thinking of the entertainment world? A giftee on your list a music/film fan? Plenty of illustrated gift books to give, ranging from single-song treatises to film-genre studies! Or is there a petrol/gearhead among those you want to spoil? Bet they'll like the single-make studies or the industry-segment overviews on this #Booksgiving list. Celebrity culture.

I'm pretty sure we're all united by our love of The Book, the object that carries stories and information into our heads. Pretty illustrated books about books there are here. Books about books.

Pretty books about the natural world, about the cultures we don't know we don't know about, about gardens, food, drinks, about history...entering a topic in the search box will get you a ton of ideas:
Art books.
Gardens and gardening.

Of course most everyone loves them a mystery, or a thriller. Got y'all covered on those fronts, too: Mystery series.Thriller.

None of these are exhaustive...exhausting, up to you to decide, but incomplete and with the expected enshittified results that our tech masters think are good enough for the likes of us. There are a lot of reviews here, so think of a category, search for it, and very possibly it will turn up useful results. I have tried hard to do that over the past twelve and a half years of reviewing.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year: #BOOKSGIVING!

As holiday celebrations go, few rival Yule (Christmas, Noël, Wiehnacht, Solstice celebrations all) in the economic reach. The reason today, the Friday after US "Thanksgiving", is called "Black Friday" is not just an acknowledgment that retail workers are in a justifiably horrible mood today but because their corporate masters are "in the black" with the sales rung up today. Later additions, like "Cyber Monday" and the like, are also based around the consumers of the country getting their shop on.

Gift-giving is a joy, at least when it's done from a full-hearted and heartful place. I enjoy giving people things whenever I'm able to. I'm far from alone in that. It's a solid chunk of the reason we have a gift-giving holiday in the first place, after all. what's so delightful about the Jólabókaflóð is it's *not* about ritual exchange of stuff, property; it's about the community-reinforcing act of sharing companionship, being together, and reading instead of staring at moving images. You can make the moving images in your brain! Isn't that what a story is when it's in a book? It's words that create images and feelings and evoke the reader's full participation! (Ideally, anyway.)

There are regional variations all over the world now. There are starter kits. There are explainers and, of all things, a Jólabókaflóð Kickstarter!

I've used the hashtag #Booksgiving because, at least to my own eyes, it's easier to scan than the Icelandic version. I do love the idea of the Yule Book Flood, whose origins are in wartime scarcity, but realistically if *I* can't say it, who not fluent in either Icelandic or Old English could?

What I do for the rest of the giving season is tag reviews "#Booksgiving" all over the blog. They're the books I think merit your consideration for giving purposes...books I especially like, I found extraordinarily compelling, or simply know that there's a reason someone would love to open up as their celebratory reading.

At the bottom of this post, you'll see the "#Booksgiving" tag...click on it, and the latest reviews tagged with it will show up. All of them, from the six years I've used this custom, will appear...anything I've reviewed...and I heartily recommend them.

May the Jólasveinar, Iceland's thirteen Santas (known in English translation as the Yule Lads), leave you books in your stockings or shoes or other present-receiving receptacles and not an old potato or lump of coal (where would they even find one of those nowadays?).

#Booksgiving time...your new annual treat

#Booksgiving, y'all, is my translation of Iceland's Jólabókaflóð (yo-la-bok-a-flot)—the annual tradition, most of a century old, of giving your gifting circle books for the long winter's nights ahead. As Iceland is a far northern country that straddles the American and Eurasian geological worlds, let's adopt this idea with more than usual glee. A country like Iceland has a lot to teach us quarantine-prone global plague survivors about how to spend a lot of time indoors whether one wants to or not.

What's so different about the idea of giving books for the holidays, I hear you ask. And rightly so, as most US, Canadian, and UK publishers rely on the gifting season for most sales...but the focus of #Booksgiving as I'm calling it isn't just the buying. It's mostly the reading. On Christmas Eve, Icelandic families exchange their gifts, and then...wait for it...settle in and read their new books! This is the beauty of the custom. "Thanks for the book, Aunt Lurlene," as it hits the shelf behind the laundry-room door. "I bet it's a corker." And fire up the terabyte-stuffed Xbox! But...and this is crucial...can you *get* the Xbox? The supply-chain problems around the world aren't easing quickly...the factories are struggling to find their rhythm...and while tree-books are having this issue too, your phone or your tablet's a Kindle at your command. Or, half-bit fruit company dupes, your iCrap connects to Apple Books.

Maybe try this new idea, this read-on-a-device-you-already-have in a group idea, in this straitened, inflationary, second pandemic holiday season. There maybe won't be a big gathering this year either; there might not be much electronic bling; but instead, a room full of people who love each other enough to stop fighting and be still in their own company...and read! If it works in snowed-in Iceland, it can work is bottled-up Birmingham, can't it? You'll never know without trying.

A formally organized holiday observance celebrating the immersive, escapist pleasures that reading offers is ideal to adopt in a crazy climate of lockdowns, easings leading to skyrocketing infections, and the general insecurity and instability of this second plague year. Icelandic publishers, like publishers across the world, depend on Holiday sales to fuel their activities for the other ten and a half months of the year.

The Icelandic book industry, however, benefits from the unique, government-sanctioned and supported "Bókatíðindi" or book catalog containing listings of the titles Icelandic publishers are hoping you'll fall in love with and give as gifts. It is mailed free of charge to every household! And, in case you're thinking "well, how many publishers can there be in a country with fewer residents than the Upper West Side?" the fact is that Iceland publishes more books per capita than any other country on Earth: 3.5 per 1,000 people! Add to that the fact that one in ten Icelanders will publish a book in their lifetime, and the effect and the appeal of this long-standing custom are made clear.

So in this weird, off-kilter year, this holy-goddesses-is-THIS-normal-now Christmas, I'm suggesting that you add this relatively inexpensive and supremely easy gift-giving strategy to your list. It's always been easy to order someone a book online, well since 1995 and the launch of Amazon anyway; and the idea of spending another socially distanced Christmas Eve in your jammies with cocoa, warm socks, and a book you got (or gave yourself!) as a gift sounds pretty darned good. Let's make cranberry juice out of those cranberries that Fate lobbed at us! (Okay, the "lemonade-from-life's-lemons" metaphor doesn't translate to Yuletide very well. Don't @ me.)

So what I'm going to do, not for the first time!, is review only the books I believe will make wonderful gifts for yourself and your readerly loved ones. Click on one of the tags at the bottom of this post, you'll get everything that has that tag served right up. You can also use the search box at the top left of the screen to find "#Booksgiving" suggestions from all four of the prior years I've been yodeling this idea into the internet's vastness. This year's reviews, all of which are recommendations, will happen between now and Yule. Signing up for emails of new posts will make sure you get inspired...and will be able to follow the links to procure the books or ebooks. (As a reminder, I do not use affiliate links, and you do not see any advertising on this blog. I am unpaid except in free books...and believe me that's enough for me!)

Happy ending for 2021? We're not out of the woods yet, we've got vaccine resisters and COVID deniers galore. But we also have hope, with new disease-management medications coming sooner than ever before in history thanks to Science. So why not try a new slant on our Western consumer-society's wretched excess-fest. One that privileges the quiet, intimate pleasure of reading with someone you care for. I guarantee it can't hurt to try.

It's #Booksgiving again!

#Booksgiving, y'all, is my translation of Iceland's Jólabókaflóð (yo-la-bok-a-flot)—the annual tradition, most of a century old, of giving your gifting circle books for the long winter's nights ahead. As Iceland is a far northern country that straddles the American and Eurasian geological worlds, let's adopt this idea woth more than usual glee. A country like Iceland has a lot to teach us quarantine-weary global Southerners about how to spend a lot of time indoors whether one wants to or not.

What's so different about the idea of giving books for the holidays, I hear you ask. And rightly so, as most US, Canadian, and UK publishers rely on the gifting season for most sales...but the focus of #Booksgiving as I'm calling it isn't the buying. It's the reading. On Christmas Eve, Icelandic families exchange their gifts, and then...wait for it...settle in and read their new books! This is the beauty of the custom. "Thanks for the book, Aunt Lurlene," as it hits the shelf behind the laundry-room door. "I bet it's a corker." And fire up the PS5!

Maybe try this new idea, this read-as-a-group idea, in this straitened economic holiday season. There won't be a big gathering; there might not be much bling; but instead, a room full of people who love each other enough to stop fighting and be still in their own company...and read! If it works in snowed-in Iceland, it can work is bottled-up Keokuk, can't it? You'll never know without trying.

A formally organized holiday observance celebrating the immersive, escapist pleasures that reading offers is ideal to adopt in a crazy climate of lockdowns, easings leading to skyrocketing infections, and the general insecurity and instability of this unique year. Icelandic publishers, like publishers across the world, depend on Holiday sales to fuel their activities for the other ten and a half months of the year.

The Icelandic book industry, however, benefits from the unique, government-sanctioned and supported "Bókatíðindi" or book catalog containing listings of the titles Icelandic publishers are hoping you'll fall in love with and give as gifts. It is mailed free of charge to every household! And, in case you're thinking "well, how many publishers can there be in a country with fewer residents than the Upper West Side?" the fact is that Iceland publishes more books per capita than any other country on Earth: 3.5 per 1,000 people! Add to that the fact that one in ten Icelanders will publish a book in their lifetime, and the effect and the appeal of this long-standing custom are made clear.

So in this Plague Year, this completely abnormal and hopefully never-to-be-repeated solitary-confinement Christmas, I'm suggesting that you add this relatively inexpensive and supremely easy gift-giving strategy to your list. It's always been easy to order someone a book online, well since 1995 and the launch of Amazon anyway; and the idea of spending a newly socially distanced Christmas Eve in your jammies with cocoa, warm socks, and a book you got (or gave yourself!) as a gift sounds pretty darned good. Let's make cranberry juice out of those cranberries that Fate lobbed at us! (Okay, the "lemonade-from-life's-lemons" metaphor doesn't translate to Yuletide very well. Don't @ me.)

So what I'm going to do, not for the first time!, is review only the books I believe will make wonderful gifts for yourself and your readerly loved ones. You can always use the search box at the top left of the screen to find "#Booksgiving" suggestions from all the years I've been yodeling this idea into the internet's vastness. This year's reviews, all of which are recommendations, will happen between now and Yule. Signing up for emails of new posts will make sure you get inspired...and will be able to follow the links to procure the books or ebooks. (As a reminder, I do not use affiliate links, and you do not see any advertising on this blog. I am unpaid except in free books...and believe me that's enough for me!)

Happy ending for 2020? We're not out of the woods yet, but try a new slant on our Western consumer-society's wretched excess-fest. One that privileges the quiet, intimate pleasure of reading with someone you care for. I guarantee it can't hurt to try.

THE ALUMINUM CHRISTMAS TREE, a religious tale about gratitude and self-worth...only GOOD!

THE ALUMINUM CHRISTMAS TREE
THOMAS J. DAVIS
Thomas Nelson Books
$6.99 Kindle edition, available now (non-affiliate Amazon link)

Rating: 3.5 very surprised stars of five

The Publisher Says: The shiny aluminum tree was the symbol of everything he thought was right in their lives and everything she thought was wrong. It was 1958 and Jimmy Jackson had it all: a wife, two kids, and the promotion that was his ticket to success. Finally, he could afford all those things he had gazed at in the Sears Roebuck catalog. But now that he had the money, would he find that the true cost was more than he could pay?

I RECEIVED A COPY OF THE BOOK FROM A DEAR OLD FRIEND. THANK YOU.

My Review: A gift from a delightful old friend, this book arrived at precisely the right time. I was not at my most pleased and happy the day it came. I read the whole book in a sitting, and was much restored and refreshed.

Thomas Davis tells an oft-told tale of a man's descent into depression caused by his single-minded pursuit of material success with no nods towards his inner needs. His wife recounts the tale to her sympathetic audience after his death, which causes her to move to a new, smaller home in town from their half-century long country life on an apple orchard. She tells her cousin and his wife, who are helping her pack and move, the story of the year that almost ended the marriage most people thought was perfect.

I think the story of any well-lived life contains the passage that Mildred, our narratrix, recounts. It's instructive to be reminded of this in fiction as well as fact. All of us fallible humans can run off the rails, and it's often only after losing "everything" that we realize how much we really have that *can't* be lost, only thrown away.

The book breaks no new ground anywhere, but it takes the reader on its well-worn path with a pleasant tone and a loving heart. I can't recommend it to the cynical or the youthful, but anyone over 40 will recognize the situation and could probably benefit from a reminder of its perils and the tenuous nature of human relationships. Take care of them, feed them, prune them carefully, and a lifetime will seem too short.

THE ALUMINUM CHRISTMAS TREE, end-stage capitalism almost ruins a marriage and a family

THE ALUMINUM CHRISTMAS TREE
THOMAS J. DAVIS
Rutledge Hill Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$2.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: The shiny aluminum tree was the symbol of everything he thought was right in their lives and everything she thought was wrong. It was 1958 and Jimmy Jackson had it all: a wife, two kids, and the promotion that was his ticket to success. Finally, he could afford all those things he had gazed at in the Sears Roebuck catalog. But now that he had the money, would he find that the true cost was more than he could pay?

My Review: A gift from a delightful old friend, this book arrived at precisely the right time. I was not at my most pleased and happy the day it came. I read the whole book in a sitting, and was much restored and refreshed.

Thomas Davis tells an oft-told tale of a man's descent into depression caused by his single-minded pursuit of material success with no nods towards his inner needs. His wife recounts the tale to her sympathetic audience after his death, which causes her to move to a new, smaller home in town from their half-century long country life on an apple orchard. She tells her cousin and his wife, who are helping her pack and move, the story of the year that almost ended the marriage most people thought was perfect.

I think the story of any well-lived life contains the passage that Mildred, our narratrix, recounts. It's instructive to be reminded of this in fiction as well as fact. All of us fallible humans can run off the rails, and it's often only after losing "everything" that we realize how much we really have that *can't* be lost, only thrown away.

The book breaks no new ground anywhere, but it takes the reader on its well-worn path with a pleasant tone and a loving heart. I can't recommend it to the cynical or the youthful, but anyone over 40 will recognize the situation and could probably benefit from a reminder of its perils and the tenuous nature of human relationships. Take care of them, feed them, prune them carefully, and a lifetime will seem too short.