We’ve long swooned over Icelanders’ charming Christmas Eve ritual, jólabókaflóð, or “Yule Book Flood,” during which loved ones exchange new books and pass the evening reading together. (You can’t spend all night bingeing “A Christmas Story,” you know.)

To help with your last-minute jólabókaflóð shopping — which you’ll hopefully do at a local indie — we recommend these recent releases from some of our favorite contributors, all of whom share the dubious distinction of launching books during this annus horribilis:

• They’re Gone: A Novel by E.A. Barres
• Salt the Snow: A Novel by Carrie Callaghan
• Known by Heart: Collected Stories by Ellen Prentiss Campbell
• Political AF: A Rage Collection by Tara Campbell
• Barnwell: An Alton Rhode Mystery by Lawrence De Maria
• Perdition: Part One of the Profane Comedy by D. Selby Fing
• Secretocracy: A Novel by Tom Glenn
• The Understudy's Handbook: Poems by Steven Leyva
• A Story of the World Before the Fence: Poems by Leeya Mehta
• Recusal by R.L. Sommer
• The Lincoln Deception: A Fraser & Cook Historical Mystery by David O. Stewart
• The Boy Detective & The Summer of ‘74 and Other Tales of Suspense by Art Taylor
• Furious Gravity: D.C. Women Writers, edited by Melissa Scholes Young

Happy holidays from the Independent, and best wishes for a joyful, literary New Year during which we can all pretend 2020 never happened…