What are you reading this festive season?

Not Christmassy but just finished D.L.Sayers Gaudy Night and am now well into Busman's Honeymoon (same author).
Read so many times but just love them (the whole series of Lord Peter Wimsey) and they are regular favourites.

I'm reading A Terrible Kindness, and I feel like I have been reading it forever because of all the Christmas distractions.

Thank you so much for this, have just hopped onto Amazon and downloaded The Town House.

So far:
Francis Spufford, Cahokia Jazz (present to myself)
Somerset Maugham, Christmas Holiday (contender for least Christmassy read with 'Christmas' in the title ever 😁)
Nancy Spain, Death Goes in Skis and Nicholas Blake, Thou Shell of Death (mysteries)
Tom&Dom, The Rest is History book

Reread: Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm, The Box of Delights, Hogfather

Currently: Little Dorrit (after which I will only have 2 Dickens novels left to read for the first time)
Anthony Horowitz, A Line to Kill

To come (gifts):
Janice Halett, The Christmas Appeal
Eva Ibbotson, A Glove Shop in Vienna
Bee Wilson, The Secret of Cooking
Mick Herron, The Secret Hours

Not Christmas based, but just because I have the time set aside to read…

On Kindle, I am reading DG Valdron's “Lexx Unauthorised” 4 volume series. A fabulous read for Lexx fans. I am really enjoying it.

I also have Konstantin Kisin's “An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West” and Vivianne Crowley's “Wild Once” on the go.

I'm also dipping in and out of the Gutenberg Project's science fiction short story section, because the night before Christmas Eve, a group of us had a story telling and reading session around the fire, and this is a treasure trove!

Love Katie Fford 🫶

I'm currently reading 'The woman in me' - Britney Spears. Loving it so far 😁🫶

I've got Josephine Tey's Inspector Grant stories as my audio book.

I've just started reading Claude Choules's autobiography, The Last of the Last.

Claude was the last survivor who had served in both WW1 and WW2. The book was has been fascinating so far (I've got to where he's just finished training and has joined the Royal Navy at the age of 16). It's recent history (he was the same age as my grandparents), yet lifestyles then were so very far removed from our own.

But I promised someone a fan fic as a Christmas present and I haven't written it yet!

I've been saving Antonia Forest's Run Away Home as a reread from long ago.

I'm reading this, which I picked up in the charity shop. It's the literary equivalent of a Hallmark Christmas movie and just the light and froth I need before bedtime.

I'm listening to the audiobook of The Dark us Rising after seeing so many people bang on about it year on year. It's brilliant!. Thank you all so much for banging on :-D

@Helar I really like her House at Old Vine trilogy (Town House is the first). I enjoyed most of her books and there are several I now have on kindle to re-read.

I've now swapped to a non-Christmassy read but I've just finished The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy M Boston and Domesday Book by Connie Willis. I'm now plagued out but loved the Christmas descriptions in both.

It’s so lovely, isn’t it? I haven’t actually read any of her other books. Is there one you would recommend?

Great recommendations here - thank you all!

Lots of comfort re-reading for me too.

I am enjoying a reread of Mistletoe and Murder by Robin Stevens - children's book part of series inspired by golden age of detective fiction. This one is clearly Gaudy Night-influenced.

I am enjoying La Belle Sauvage once again. Love escaping to alternate (but familiar) worlds in winter so must put The Dark is Rising on my list.

I am also enjoying The Light in the Dark by Horatio Clare which often keeps me company this time of year.

Nothing Christmassy at all but I got a load of Patricia Wentworth books second hand after she was suggested in another thread. I love Agatha Christie and have been looking for a similar style and theme.

Really loving them and feel I'm spending time with real people as she writes really well.

I've got a proper proper chick lit book I bought as a token gift for me and a friend. She reads more high brow than me but confessed to a chick lit treat at Christmas. It's about a hotel inspector who goes to wilds of Scotland to a Christmas themed island. It's based on a real resort in Finland (that i really want to
Go to ) and the descriptions of the snow/ northern llghts and this amazjng hotel are what i love. pure escapism

Now she is witch by Kirsty Logan - brilliant so far. Highly recommend.

And the new Jeanette W ghost story collection - very flimsy so far I think but I’m only a quarter or so through.

@Helar I read How Far To Bethlehem each year as well. I have never heard anyone else mention it! I am pleased so many of Norah Loft's books are now on kindle.

How far to Bethlehem by Nora lofts. A beautiful realised story of the Nativity.

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden. Suitably wintery.

My audiobook is Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie. Christie always feels wintery to me somehow.

The Christmas Guest by Peter Swanson, I really enjoyed it.

One Christmas Eve - Shari Low - nice little book about three stories of daughter, mother, grandmother on Christmas Eve and how decesions made in the past affect the next generation. Really enjoyed this book. Not too chick lit or too over -romanticised with some surprises along the way. A pleasant read.