[Link] There’s a crisis in non-fiction book sales. What’s to blame?

We’re buying 17 million fewer factual books than six years ago. Is the rise of podcasts to blame? Or publishers’ obsession with celebrities and influencers?

by Ceci Browning

Inside the world of books there are always a few things that everybody knows about but nobody can bring themselves to say out loud. Much of the present whispering is that something has gone seriously wrong with non-fiction. When did the big magisterial titles so common on late 20th century bookshelves disappear? Where did they go? Is there anything left to read for those who aren’t interested in ghostwritten celebrity memoirs or self-help manuals?

Unfortunately those fears are backed up by facts. Fiction sales might be swelling – underpinned by the rise of romantasy and a strange new demand for dragon-based love affairs – but according to Nielsen, sales of non-fiction books in 2025 were down 6 per cent compared with 2024. It was the lowest yearly total since 2017, the sorry end point of years of painfully consistent decline.

And the books that did sell well in 2024 weren’t “big ideas” titles like Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens or charming travelogues like Bill Bryson’s The Road to Little Dribbling that elbowed their way into the charts a decade or so ago.

Read the full article: https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/what-happened-non-fiction-books-publishing-industry-trends-gd9snqwjz

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[Link] Literary Iceland Revels In Its Annual 'Christmas Book Flood'

by Jordan G. Teicher

In the United States, popular holiday gifts come and go from year to year. But in Iceland, the best Christmas gift is a book — and it has been that way for decades.

Iceland publishes more books per capita than any other country in the world, with five titles published for every 1,000 Icelanders. But what's really unusual is the timing: Historically, a majority of books in Iceland are sold from late September to early November. It's a national tradition, and it has a name: Jolabokaflod, or the "Christmas Book Flood."

"The culture of giving books as presents is very deeply rooted in how families perceive Christmas as a holiday," says Kristjan B. Jonasson, president of the Iceland Publishers Association. "Normally, we give the presents on the night of the 24th and people spend the night reading. In many ways, it's the backbone of the publishing sector here in Iceland."

Read the full article: http://www.npr.org/2012/12/25/167537939/literary-iceland-revels-in-its-annual-christmas-book-flood