The Lemon Fool

I'm looking for recommendations for holiday reading. A feature of the Christmas holiday period for me is curling up my cats and with an enjoyable book or two. I like them to be in some way appropriately seasonal but not too demanding as goes with a time of short days, few of your usual activities plus more than you really need to eat and drink.

Despite not being a great fan of Dickens at some time over the holiday period I usually read 'A Christmas Carol' for the nnth time. Last year I enjoyed 'Murder under the Christmas Tree' described as Ten Classic Crime Stories for the Festive Season. Inevitably it contained two or three I'd read before but overall it was an enjoyable and distinctly undemanding read. Plus another selection of short Christmas based stories by PD James 'The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories'.

I'm looking for some new suggestions for this year. They don't have to be short stories just because last year's were. They don't have to be in the crime/thriller mode. They don't have to have been written at or based in any particular time period - published last year or two centuries ago, it doesn't matter.

Any suggestions? Do other people go in for specifically 'Christmas reads'? Do you have books or stories you go back to every Christmas?

The Country Child by Alison Uttley with its largely autobiographical (and idealised) account of growing up in small farm 'on top of the world' in Derbyshire. See especially the run-up to Xmas and what it was like being snowed in.

Well I don't think that you can beat The Hogfather by Terry Prattchet.

He produced a hell of a lot of stuff and some was because he had to. However I do think that not only is this one of his best works but a great book to read (as a adult) at christmas.

The punch line at the end makes you think and wonder if you shoud re-read the book imeadiatly.

Ps don't give it small children to read. The tooth fairy turns out to be, at the least scary in former times, and if you are adult scary now!

You've already done the PD James one - I've got that to read this year.
There's one Sherlock Holmes which is vaguely Christmas-ish - "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle", probably available free somewhere
I always think a bit of MR James goes down well at Christmas, with some decent port and nice cheese/biscuits ; there often seems to be a TV adaptation on during the festive season

For sheer delight I'd strongly recommend Village Christmas: And Other Notes on the English Year by Laurie Lee - http://amzn.eu/7pAxCwV

I was reminded of how much pleasure this book and others by Laurie Lee have given me over the years by listening to the excellent Derek Jacobi reading excerpts from it for this week's Book of the Week on Radio 4 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09jc69h - evocative of a lost time and way of life when people rarely strayed beyond their own village and a bumper Christmas haul was a tin soldier and a tangerine!

Perfect Christmas listening and food for thought in an age of excess.

The only one that comes directly to mind, that hasn't been mentioned, is Hercule Poirot's Christmas.

Slarti

Urbandreamer wrote:Well I don't think that you can beat The Hogfather by Terry Prattchet.

...

My neighbour John Cartier played the butler for David Warner in the TV adaptation. He had the biggest and longest ears I've ever seen so got small extra parts in Harry Potter films, adverts, etc. A true talent. Last time I saw him, late 00's, he said he was getting too old for film work. He used to be in google and internet but I can't find any trace of him now.

By chance I found a small gem while browsing in the library:

'A Maigret Christmas' Georges Simenon - "Three seasonal stories set in Paris at Christmas...This collection brings together three of Simenon's Christmas tales, newly translated, featuring Inspector Maigret and other characters from the Maigret novels.

A lot of 'golden age' crime novels have been reprinted recently- by the British Library I think.
I've got "Mystery in White, a Christmas Crime Story' on my reading pile (J Jefferson Farjeon, 1937)

Clitheroekid wrote:For sheer delight I'd strongly recommend Village Christmas: And Other Notes on the English Year by Laurie Lee - http://amzn.eu/7pAxCwV

I was reminded of how much pleasure this book and others by Laurie Lee have given me over the years by listening to the excellent Derek Jacobi reading excerpts from it for this week's Book of the Week on Radio 4 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09jc69h - evocative of a lost time and way of life when people rarely strayed beyond their own village and a bumper Christmas haul was a tin soldier and a tangerine!

Perfect Christmas listening and food for thought in an age of excess.

Sorry CK, but I have to disagree with you. I bought it last Christmas and was disappointed, struck me as the bottom of a barrel being scraped. Far better to stick to "Cider with Rosie", which is worth reading.

Apart from re-reading the nostalgic Xmas chapter of Alison Uttley’s The Country Child (vide my earlier reply), I usually immerse myself in what life was like a thousand years ago with Maitland’s Domesday Book and Beyond and/or Bennett’s Life on the English Manor, and nearer to home Woodforde’s Diary of a Country Parson.