When talking about good reasons to buy a book for Christmas, thoughts inevitably turn to the Icelandic festival of Jólabókaflóð or ‘Christmas Book Flood’. To those of us who didn’t grow up in Iceland, there seem to be two schools of thought on this. The first is that this is a time when the entire family present each other with gifts of books. They then proceed to pull on their thickest, most comfortable knitwear; dig out their warmest, softest blankets; and then lie in front of roaring fires reading and stuffing chocolates. The second version is that publishers and authors save up their new releases until December and flood the market with new books, in the hope of capitalizing on the Icelandic love of reading.
As someone who wears a T-shirt in winter, I sincerely hope it’s the second version – similarly as someone who is concerned about how you clean all that melted chocolate out of the wool-wear.
All this said – the concept of giving books as gifts is as old as the hills and there are plenty of great reasons to keep doing so. Here are some of our thoughts.
Imagination
In an era where so much thinking is being done for us – from loud, fast paced YouTube and TV shows to ChatGPT and beyond – when do we get to exercise our imaginations anymore? Human imagination is considered to be uniquely complex and yet we give ourselves so few opportunities to exercise it. It is also very closely linked to empathy, which you might argue is another uniquely human trait that more people could do with exercising in the 2020s…
But how to develop our imaginations? Many would argue that reading utilizes our imagination in a way that TV, films, and doomscrolling don’t. I would also argue that it’s a far better way to wind down for bedtime than video games.
Maybe we could think of the gift of a book as the gift of imagination and empathy. Failing that, how about a bit of peace and quiet at bedtime, after the sugar and noise of a busy Christmas day?
Stocking filler
Another great reason for buying books at Christmas is that they are relatively cheap. Video games can cost anywhere between £30-60 and, if you’re lucky, may have 100 hours of play time – not that this is an argument against gaming (it’s awesome) but a really good book will last you a lifetime, being re-read many times, and can often be as cheap as £10. Even if it makes for a slightly lumpy stocking, it’s not bad value – just don’t put it on top of the tangerine!
Special editions of classics
As the Icelandic tradition of ‘Christmas Book Flood’ shows, many publishers save up releases for Christmas, in the hope of selling to a public desperate for special gifts. For the reader, this means that there are often special editions and bindings of everything from new works to much loved classics – see these cloth bound editions of Penguin classics at Waterstones, for example. This isn’t some new fad, either – buying and gifting beautifully bound books has been fashionable since at least the 19th Century.
Authors
Another lovely spin-off of buying books is that you can choose to support indie authors and small publishing houses. During a period of mass commercialism, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and all kinds of businesses trying to sell you mass produced stuff for you to fling at your loved ones, it can be nice to give something a little more unique. It would be remiss of me not to mention that we happen to be indie authors and that our publishers happen to be a small publishing house. Cough. Cough. There are many, many others of course.
Ready to use
We live in a time where pretty much everything needs an instruction manual an inch thick and a small heap of batteries, or a new type of charger. Whatever it is then usually proceeds to auto lock its screen every five minutes or immediately break down in an incredibly expensive way.
Books are a bit different. You just open – and read. It doesn’t try to lock you out. It doesn’t run out of battery. It doesn’t have a bright LED screen to dry and tire out your eyes. It doesn’t shatter (leading to an enormous row) if you accidentally drop it. There’s something quite refreshing and charming about that.
Summary
These are, of course, just a few reasons to buy a book this Christmas. There are many, many more (and we’d love to hear about those on our social media channels). Hopefully, though, this has given you some food for thought and nudged you into considering it. Of course, we’d love you to buy our book (and would highly recommend you to – it is, after all, the perfect Christmas gift) but even if you don’t – go out and buy a book you love. Give it to someone you love. Spread a little happiness.