It’s the holiday season! Traditions are in abundance at this time of year, from country-wide to family-specific. If you’re religious, you might go to your place of worship. Or perhaps maybe you stay home drinking hot chocolate and watching holiday movies. Some people volunteer to bring food, drink, and companionship to the less fortunate. In my family, my sisters and I dress in matching pajamas and watch the 24-hour A Christmas Story marathon on TBS.

Like many other countries, Iceland has a holiday tradition of its own. It’s called “Jolabokaflod,” which can be translated as “Christmas Book Flood” or “Yule Book Flood,” and began during World War II. Each year, every Icelandic household receives a catalogue called “Bokatidindi,” or “Book Bulletin,” from which people can order from.

Friends and family then exchange books on Christmas Eve and spend the rest of the night reading and drinking hot chocolate or a non-alcoholic ale called “jolabland.” This is a fitting tradition for a nation that publishes and reads more books than any other Nordic country. In addition, Iceland is the third most literate country in the world (the US is seventh, Canada eleventh, Australia sixteenth, and the UK seventeenth), and Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, was named a UNESCO City of Literature in 2011.

Within this year’s Bokatidindi catalogue, recommendations include:

The Eight Mountains by Paolo Cognetti

“Pietro is a lonely boy living in Milan. With his parents becoming more distant each day, the only thing the family shares is their love for the mountains that surround Italy.

While on vacation at the foot of the Aosta Valley, Pietro meets Bruno, an adventurous, spirited local boy. Together they spend many summers exploring the mountains’ meadows and peaks and discover the similarities and differences in their lives, their backgrounds, and their futures. The two boys come to find the true meaning of friendship and camaraderie, even as their divergent paths in life—Bruno’s in the mountains, Pietro’s across the world—test the strength and meaning of their connection.” (Amazon)

I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

“In Iain’s first deeply suspenseful and an unnerving novel I’m Thinking of Ending Things, a man and his girlfriend are on their way to a secluded farm.  When the two take an unexpected detour, she is left stranded, wondering if there is any escape at all.  What follows is a twisted unraveling that will haunt you long after the last page is turned.” (Simon & Schuster)

The Braid by Laetitia Colombani

“Smita, Giulia, Sarah: three lives, three continents, three women with nothing in common, but nevertheless bound by a rare expression of courage . . . like three strands in a braid. Through the story of one woman’s hair, three women’s destinies are drawn together.

India. Smita is an untouchable, married to a ‘rat hunter’, her job to clean with her bare hands the village latrines, just like her mother before her. Her dream is to see her daughter escape this same fate, and learn to read. When this hope is shattered, she decides to run away with the child, despite her husband’s warnings, sacrificing what is most precious to her: her hair.

Sicily. Giulia is a worker in her father’s wig workshop, the last of its kind in Palermo. She classifies, washes, bleaches, and dyes the hair provided by the city’s hairdressers. When her father is the victim of a serious accident, she quickly discovers the family company is bankrupt.

Canada. Sarah is a reputed lawyer. As a twice-divorced mother of three children, she ploughs through cases at breakneck speed. Just as she is about to be promoted, she learns she has breast cancer. Her seemingly perfect existence begins to show its cracks . . . But this is only if one ignores the incredible lust for life that keeps her going.

Laetitia Colombani’s The Braid is the powerfully moving story of three women’s courage in the face of adversity.” (Pan Macmillan)

No Honour in Crime by Lene Wold

“During the past three years, Lene Wold has spent a considerable amount of time in Jordan with a man who has killed both his mother and one of his two daughters in order to restore his family’s honour. Wold has travelled around Jordan and interviewed a number of people about honour killing. The author portrays the man’s upbringing, culture and dilemmas that shaped him as a person and the choices he made. Wold’s other important source is Amina. This daughter spent several years in prison after the failed murder attempt in order to protect her from her own family. In Jordan, it is the women, the survivors of attempted honour killings, who are imprisoned – not the perpetrators.

The author has visited prisons and mosques, searched through newsprints and court archives and contacted imams, village heads and killers. Using a unique source material, Wold illuminates a hitherto unknown aspect of honour killings. The story is told from the perpetrator’s perspective, and Wold shows that honour killings are not about Islam, but about traditions and laws, which must be challenged and changed. No Honour in Crime is a shocking and illuminating tale of how a man chooses inherited culture over the lives of his own children.” (Hagan Agency)

Dancing in Odessa by Ilya Kaminsky

“Despite the fact that he is a non-native speaker, Kaminksy’s sense of rhythm and lyic surpasses that of most contemporary poets in the English language. This magical, musical book of poems draws readers into its unforgettable heart, and Carolyn Forché wrties simply ‘I’m in awe of his gifts.’” (Amazon)

Mortal Engines (Mortal Engines, Book 1) by Philip Reeve

“London is hunting again. Emerging from its hiding place in the hills, the great Traction City is chasing a terrified little town across the wastelands. Soon, London will feed. In the attack, Tom Natsworthy is flung from the speeding city with a murderous scar-faced girl. They must run for their lives through the wreckage — and face a terrifying new weapon that threatens the future of the world.” (Amazon)

These are just recommendations from this year’s 84-page bulletin (swoon). Now excuse me while I add these to my TBR list. If you’re interested in learning more, head to the website, and Happy Holidays!

Will you be participating? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Jolabokaflod: The Icelandic Tradition of Giving Books appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Read on to discover our picks and tell us in the comments below which ones you are most excited for!

The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Told by multiple voices across time, The Clockmaker’s Daughter is a story of murder, mystery and thievery, of art, love and loss. And flowing through its pages like a river, is the voice of a woman who stands outside time, whose name has been forgotten by history, but who has watched it all unfold: Birdie Bell, the clockmaker’s daughter.

Black Swan Rising by Lisa Brackmann
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Sarah Price wants a career in politics. But she has a secret past that won’t stay past, threatening her job on a San Diego congressman’s reelection campaign. Casey Cheng wants a story. An ambitious local television reporter, Casey needs to get her career back on track after being seriously injured in a mass shooting. When she investigates the man who nearly killed her, she finds a connection to a group of online harassers called #TrueMen–and realises her shooter may not be the only killer they have inspired.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

The Carls just appeared. Coming home from work at three a.m., twenty-three-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship–like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor–April and her friend Andy make a video with it, which goes viral. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight.

Leave No Trace by Mindy Mejia
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Ten years ago a man and his son trekked into the wilderness and never returned. Search teams found their campsite ravaged by what looked like a bear. They were presumed dead until a decade later…the son appeared. Discovered while ransacking an outfitter store, he was violent and uncommunicative and sent to a psychiatric facility. Maya Stark, the assistant language therapist, is charged with making a connection with their high-profile patient. No matter how she tries, however, he refuses to answer questions about his father or the last ten years of his life.

When The Lights Go Out by Mary Kubica
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Jessie Sloane is on the path to rebuilding her life after years of caring for her ailing mother. But when her college informs her that her social security number has raised a red flag, Jessie discovers a shocking detail that causes her to doubt everything she’s ever known. As days pass and the insomnia worsens, it plays with Jessie’s mind. Her judgement is blurred, her thoughts are hampered by fatigue. Jessie begins to see things until she can no longer tell the difference between what’s real and what she’s only imagined. Meanwhile, twenty years earlier and two hundred and fifty miles away, another woman’s split-second decision may hold the key to Jessie’s secret past. Has Jessie’s whole life been a lie or have her delusions gotten the best of her?

I Know You Know by Gilly Macmillan
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Twenty years ago, eleven-year-olds Charlie Paige and Scott Ashby were murdered in the city of Bristol. A man was convicted of the brutal crime, but decades later, questions still linger. For his whole life, filmmaker Cody Swift has been haunted by the deaths of his childhood best friends. The loose ends of the police investigation consume him so much that he decides to return to Bristol in search of answers. Hoping to uncover new evidence, and to encourage those who may be keeping long-buried secrets to speak up, Cody starts a podcast to record his findings. But there are many people who don’t want the case—along with old wounds—reopened so many years after the tragedy, especially Charlie’s mother, Jess, who decides to take matters into her own hands.

The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

From the gilded ballrooms of Imperial Vienna to the frozen forests of the Eastern Front; from hardscrabble operating rooms to battlefields thundering with Cossack cavalry, The Winter Soldier is a story of war and medicine, of family, of finding love in the sweeping tides of history, and finally, of the mistakes we make and the precious opportunities to atone.

Lake Success by Gary Shteyngart
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

When his dream of the perfect marriage, the perfect son, and the perfect life implodes, a Wall Street millionaire takes a cross-country bus trip in search of his college sweetheart and ideals of youth in the long-awaited novel, his first in seven years, from the acclaimed, bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story.

Foe by Iain Reid
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Told in Reid’s sharp and evocative style, Foe examines the nature of domestic relationships, self-determination, and what it means to be (or not to be) a person. An eerily entrancing page-turner, it churns with unease and suspense from the first words to its shocking finale.

She Would Be King by Wayetu Moore
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A novel of exhilarating range, magical realism, and history—a dazzling retelling of Liberia’s formation
Wayétu Moore’s powerful debut novel, She Would Be King, reimagines the dramatic story of Liberia’s early years through three unforgettable characters who share an uncommon bond.

I Will Never Leave You by S.M Thayer
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Banking heiress Trish and her husband, James, seem to have it all, from a lavish lifestyle to a historic mansion in the nation’s capital. The only thing that’s missing to make their family complete is a baby, until Trish holds Anne Elise in her arms. There’s just one problem: Trish isn’t the mother. The baby belongs to Laurel, James’s young mistress. And more than that, James and Laurel want to start a new life together—despite an ironclad prenup standing in their way. When Trish becomes dangerously obsessed with making Laurel’s baby her own, the lovers’ plan to break James’s marriage quickly goes awry. How far is each of them willing to go for happiness?

The Storyteller’s Secret by Sejal Badani
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Nothing prepares Jaya, a New York journalist, for the heartbreak of her third miscarriage and the slow unravelling of her marriage in its wake. Desperate to assuage her deep anguish, she decides to go to India to uncover answers to her family’s past. Intoxicated by the sights, smells, and sounds she experiences, Jaya becomes an eager student of the culture. But it is Ravi—her grandmother’s former servant and trusted confidant—who reveals the resilience, struggles, secret love, and tragic fall of Jaya’s pioneering grandmother during the British occupation.

Check out our other September book picks on our Goodreads list!

Any other releases you’re excited to read this month? Tell us in the comments below!

The post September Book Releases: Fiction appeared first on The Nerd Daily.