Have you ever heard of the Icelandic Christmas book flood or the Jólabókaflóð? Iceland, being a country so far to the north, experiences very dark winters, so most people spend an extended amount of time indoors. To capitalize on this fact, every year in the time before Christmas, publishers in Iceland put out more books around the holiday season than the rest of the year with a constant stream of new books, book-related events, and literary catalogs. Icelanders then exchange books on Christmas Eve and spend the night reading with hot chocolate. Iceland is a country with a much higher literacy rate than the United States and with its long, dark winters, books have been a perennially popular holiday gift.
Here in the U.S., readers generally don’t get to enjoy that sort of seasonal deluge, but here at the library, you can experience something like it! Reading a good book and immersing yourself in a story is a gift you can give yourself and the library can let you do it without spending more money on books that can end up cluttering your shelves. If you spend some time in our new section, you’ll find more books than you could read in a year, as well as the latest free catalog, BookPage.
If you’d like to discuss some of the books you’ve read, our book clubs are an excellent outlet! If you’re interested, stop by at our reference desk and ask a librarian for more information or to be added to the list. It doesn’t matter if you like general fiction, romance, mysteries, or horror: we have a book club for you and would love to see you there!
And we’re approaching the deadline for electric griddle and toaster oven donations, so if you’re looking to contribute, please do so ASAP! You can either drop them off or if ordering online have them delivered to the library; our address is 366 Main St, Goshen, NY 10924. We already have a large number but would like to see it grow! And we’d like to extend our thanks to all of the generous individuals who have donated already.
We also want to make our patrons aware of our upcoming holiday closings: the library will be closed all day on December 24, 25, and 31, as well as January 1, 2025. Other than those days, we will be open our normal hours for the month.
As always, you can access our full online calendar by going to goshenpubliclibrary.org.
Goshen Public Library
Goshen