Hi dear friends!!
I am excited about maybe starting a new holiday tradition this year! Truthfully, I’ve had this idea for the last two years, but sadly did not prepare early enough to make it happen! But this year I did! 👍🏼
Have you ever heard of the Icelandic tradition of exchanging books to read on Christmas Eve? (If you are on social media, you might have!) 🎄
Well, when I first heard about it I immediately thought how fun it would be to celebrate this tradition with a bunch of Austenesque friends! 📚
And that’s what I am hoping to do this year! 🎁
So consider this your invitation to join us in celebrating an Icelandic holiday tradition Austenesque style!
~ What Austenesque Jolabokaflod Looks Like ~
📗 All are welcome to take part!
📕 Anyone who is taking part will send 1️⃣ Austenesque book and receive 1️⃣ Austenesque book for Austenesque Jolabokaflod.
📗 Gifted books will all be paperbacks (no ebooks or audiobooks) and can be gifted from either BookDepository.com or Amazon.com.
📕 Participants will share their mailing address and list 5-10 Austenesque books that are on their wishlist (and that they don’t plan on purchasing or receiving as gifts in the next 2 months!)
📗 I’ll collect all the information from interested participants and then randomly sort and designate who is gifting to whom. (This will be Secret Santa style – meaning you won’t know in advance who is gifting your book!)
📕 Participants will purchase an Austenesque book (from their recipient’s wishlist) and send it to their assigned recipient before December 10th.
📗 Recipients will receive their gifted book and enjoy it on December 24th in celebration of Austenesque Jolabokaflod! (Maybe honor the holiday by reading a couple of chapters of your gifted book on Christmas Eve!!)
Hopefully that all makes sense! 🤞🏼
🎁 I thought it would be wise to have participants list 5-10 books that they would like to receive (in paperback) to avoid the possibility of them receiving a book they already own or aren’t particularly interested in.
🎁 And I picked paperback over other formats as it ties back to the holiday’s origins and is maybe a more satisfying gift to “open” and receive.
🎁 I recommend using Book Depository to send your recipient’s book as shipping is free worldwide, but if you prefer to use Amazon – you can. My thinking is that the spending amount will be around $20 or less for the sender.
Do you want take part in the first-ever Austenesque Jolabokaflod?!
If yes, fill out this form before November 10th!
Hopefully this will work well! If you have any questions at all please don’t hesitate to ask!
#AustenesqueJolabokaflod
Interesting!!!!!!
❤️
I’m in!!! Thank you.
Woot!! You may have been one of the first to sign up! So excited!
This sounds great, but in picking books, keep in mind that you may be matched with an international participant. The US has a book postage rate, but not all countries do. It costs me $9-$13 to send a book from Canada. I can absorb that, but maybe not all readers can. So perhaps participants can pick a bit of a range of prices in consideration of those who’ll have to pay extra postage. That said, a gift exchange of Austenesque books sounds right up my alley! I know lots of Icelandic people, but I still can’t pronounce Jolabokaflod with ease! Thanks, Meredith!
Thanks, Suzan! I appreciate your encouragement! Do you know if that is true for Book Depository? I believed their site said free shipping worldwide, but now I am not quite sure. I did just send a book to Australia through them recently and it was free shipping. I know this means that senders might opt to send from the site directly verses getting it send to their home, wrapping it and including a little note.
But I figured being able to ship for free and being easily able to include international readers were a fair trade off. 😉
I am almost sure The Book Depository has free shipping worlwide, at least for Portugal they do ship for free.
It is true. Bookdepository works with the postal service of each country. The only thing to take into account is that right now there’re some limits with some countries.
Thank you, both, for verifying that!
What a fun idea, Meredith! Thanks for your work!
Thank you, Reina! So glad you think so!
I am definitely intrigued! What a fabulous idea. It is a great way to strengthen our Jane Austen bonds with those we see the names of on your blog or elsewhere! I do know it can be expensive to ship to Canada from the U.S. and vice versa like Suzan says. But considering what is going on in the world today, ‘what a happy thought, indeed’!
Oh yay! So glad you think so, Carole! I really wanted to celebrate this holiday and I thought it would be great fun to do it with Austenesque friends!
If a sender needs to ship outside the US, Book Depository might be the best way to go.
I had never heard of this and it sounds lovely. I like your twist on the holiday.
Oh fun! I am happy to introduce it to you!
I absolutely love this idea!!! I am glad you finally had the time to promote this on your blog Meredith 🙂
Oh yay!! I am really happy you like it!
Me too! It was mostly remembering to start early enough with the organizing of it!
What a lovely idea. I am not going to participate as I am trying to get the pile of unread books on my Kindle down and don’t want to add to books I own and have not read. I have some old paperbacks which I read before I retired but never reviewed and I keep wanting to reread those in order to post a review. Best wishes to all who participate. Stay safe.
I’m glad you like the idea, Sheila!
Best of luck with your reading goals!
I would like to be included. I like the idea.
Yay!! All you need to do is fill out the form (if you haven’t already!)
I love this idea! One question before I sign up. Do the books we choose have to be on both Book Depository and Amazon? I’m not sure how much JAFF is on BD (will have to explore that site, I haven’t bought from there in quite a while) and I know some JAFF authors are exclusive to Amazon, so I wasn’t sure how that worked.
Hello Anna, I have checked the ones I wanted to put on my list and they were on BD but one. Maybe it is worth checking beforehand.
That’s a great question! I would say no they don’t have to. But maybe double check to see that at least 1 or 2 on your list are on BD to cover all bases 😉
I know one on my list isn’t on BD, but I still plan on listing it anyway. I am happy to find a lot of JAFF is on BD, including: Quills and Quartos, Meryton Press, and books by lots of authors: Abigail Reynolds, Leenie Brown, Regina Jeffers, Maria Grace, Joana Starnes, etc. I checked a bunch to make sure it was still a viable option.
Thank you both for responding to my question. I’m signed up now. So excited!
Best Wishes!
Thanks, friend!
What a fun idea! I was fortunate enough to visit Iceland (incredibly beautiful), so this brings up all sorts of wonderful memories. I’m glad the international shipping question was asked & answered; it was my first thought, too.
Lucky you, Lucy! I definitely want to go there myself!
Same here! There was no way I wanted to do this and not include international friends!
I’d LOVE to participate! Wow, I’m thrilled you want to organize this!
Woot woot, Jeanna! I am happy to organize it!
It sounds delightful! I’ll have a look at depository books and how it works because I’ve never sent a book to a foreign country and I don’t want to make a mess LOL
Thank you Meredith for this magical and sweet tradition you have taken to your place 🙂 All of us need happy things to focus on, special this year.
OMG such a name Jolabokaflod! It sounds very Mary Poppins-esque LOL
Hi again, Meredith 😉
I´ve just seen Bookdepository and in order to buy a book you need to create an account (ok, like in amazon) but I would like to know how I could send a book to anyone different from me. It seems a silly question but the only experience I have in buying online has been through amazon and in these cases always the books have been for me so, is there an option in Bookdepository to send the book to someone different from the purchaser? I wouldn´t like to make a mess and sending the book to myself LOL
Great question, Teresa! You would just set the shipping address to the recipient’s address instead of your own. You only need to do this when you are getting ready to ship the book to them. And then make sure the billing address stays as your own.
Hi Teresa! I am so happy you like this idea!
I am definitely happy that THIS is the year I finally launch this idea!!
LOL! SO true! It does sounds like a made-up fun word!
Thank you so much, Meredith!
Done it! I’m in!
I’m so thrilled! 🙂
This sounds great! I recently read about this tradition, it sounds lovely. As far as the international shipping, I recently needed to send 3 paperbacks to Portugal, and the easiest way to do that was to order them from Amazon Spain. The shipping was fairly inexpensive.
I am so excited to finally celebrate it this year! I hope it becomes a yearly event!
Good to know there is more than one option for international shipping!
Meredith, this is a great idea! I have just filled in the form 🙂
I use the different Amazon accounts when I have to send a book, it lowers the shipping price. Bookdepository is really good too as you mentioned.
Thank you, Ana! I am so excited that you want to take part!
Awesome! I am glad it won’t be too challenging to work around!!
What a festive idea, Meredith! I participated in a Christmas exchange several years ago through a book review site and it was a lot of fun. I’m in!
Oh fun! I haven’t done one before, but love Christmas exchanges in general so it seemed a perfect fit!
So happy to have you join in!
This sounds like so much fun. I’m only going to participate by watching from the sidelines and see what books everyone gets. Sadly, I only read in an ebook format today and the only paper books I have purchased are larger rather pricey non-fiction Austenesque books. But I just love this whole idea and I have indeed heard of this Icelandic tradition. If you could just see the smile on my face…. So cool, Meredith!