Frontispiece of the first edition of Carl Sandburg’s Rootabaga Stories (Harcourt, Brace, and Company, New York, 1922). Illustration by Maud and Miska Petersham.
Some of you may be familiar with Jólabókaflóðið, the Icelandic tradition of giving your loved ones a “flood of books” to read (and, in our favorite version, a bar of chocolate to eat while reading) on Christmas Eve. We asked authors from past Festivals, what book do you give most often as a gift, and why?
Andrew Solomon: “Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf, because it is such a compelling description of the relationship between a mother and a son, and has been so underrated. And for children, The Rootabaga Stories by Carl Sandburg, because their use of language is so rich and imaginative and because they contain such remarkable leaps of imagination.”
(For gift recommendations by Nantucket Book Festival authors Bret Anthony Johnston, Scott Turow, Geraldine Brooks, Stephanie Clifford, Anthony Marra, Lisa Genova, Jodi Picoult, Daniel Menaker, Ben Bradlee Jr., Ben Fountain, Eileen Myles, Andrea Cohen, Catherine Lacey, Robert Pinsky, Michelle Gable, and Megan Marshall, please visit the Nantucket Book Festival website.
