Books and Christmas

My family has been under the weather this week, so I'm doing more caretaking and movie watching than drawing or blog posting. However, once I got back on the web, I noticed two interesting articles that put an emphasis on books during the Christmas season.
One is from My Little Bookcase, a blog by an Aussie mom. It features a book-a-day advent calendar. That sounds like a great idea for next year!

The other is a fascinating NPR article about Icelanders and their relationship to books. It turns out that the Icelandic people are big on books---actual books not e-books (as of yet). And they only recently started getting into paperbacks. This time of year is especially important, since most of their Christmas gifts are books. They even have a word for it: Jolabokaflod or Christmas book flood. Imagine if the U.S. had this tradition.

Intrigued by these people,  I'm determined to read at least one book by an Icelandic author (children's books included) this year.  Any suggestions?

Happy New Year! (Or Gleðilegt nýtt ár!)