Christmas books you would recommend

[Ilovecaviar]

I love a good Christmas book to snuggle down to in winter.

Fiction or cookbook recommendations very welcome.

I’ll start with:

12 days of Christmas and last Christmas at the castle by Trisha Ashley
Christmas chronicles by Nigel slater
Letters from father Christmas by J.R.Tolkien
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie

Winter Solstice by Rosamund Pilcher

Calm Christmas by Beth Kempton. I start reading it around the end of October every year.

Mine are mostly children's books but I often re-read them at Christmas:
The December and Christmas chapters of The Country Child by Alison Uttley
Stories for Christmas also by Alison Uttley (she really can evoke Christmas!)
Children of Green Knowe
The Dark is Rising

Best description of Christmas dinner ever, from Alison Uttley:"The potatoes were balls of snow, the sprouts green as if they had just come from the garden, as indeed they had, for they too had been snow-covered not long before. The turkey was brown and crisp. It had been Susan’s enemy for many a day, chasing her from the poultry-yard, and now it was brought low ; the stuffing smelled of the herb garden in the heat of the sun.

As for the plum pudding with its spray of red berries and shiny leaves and its hidden sixpence, which would fall out, and land on Susan’s plate, it was the best they had ever tasted."

She also has the best description of a stocking and of a Christmas tree!

The Christmas Chronicles by Nigel Slater. Just fabulous.

Wonderful, I shall look them all up, thank you.

there is a Christmas book by Enid Bylton as well that I forgot, Christmas stories.

The More the Merrier, by Anne Fine. The BBC audiobook, if you ever see it, is one of the funniest ever. Sadly, we wore it out.

And obviously Dickens A Christmas Carol!

I have never read any other Maeve Binchy but she has a short story collection called 'This Year Will be Different'. I read it last December and really enjoyed it.

Mine was going to be Trisha Ashley :-) all her books, i think a few feature Christmas
Also Milly Johnson

I read The Willows at Christmas every year.

If you want a gentle but really cosy feeling story, you cant go wrong with Christmas at Thrush Green. Any Miss Read books are perfect for instilling that cosy feeling in the darker months.

My Christmas reading list is:
The afterlife of Holly Chase
Entwined
For the wolf
The bear and the nightingale

I've just bought this .

I'd also recommend Nigel slater Christmas chronicles

A Child’s Christmas in Wales.

What a lovely thread @Ilovecaviar, thank you!

Many old favourites here. I'm actually reading Winter Solstice right now.
As a child, at Christmas I used to read all the Christmas chapters in my books: The Country Child, Sam Pig, the Little House on the Prairie books, Little Women...

Oooh, I forgot, The Box of Delights!

Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder is nice to read a chapter a day through advent.

For a novel that's adult, contemporary, complex, and a little bit offbeat, look at Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi. It's not specifically ABOUT Christmas, but about a London-based family with strong ties to both Africa and central Europe, and a recipe for gingerbread that makes and breaks the family's fortunes, relationships, and identity/personal history.

Also not explicitly about Chrismas, but I love to reread Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising (and actually the whole series with the same name) over Christmas week - very atmospheric!

I see Winter Solstice recommended here every year so last year bought it and curled up looking forward to a christmassy cozy feeling.

spoilers

i hated it - i couldn’t get over them killing off Oscar(?)’s lovely young daughter about 1/3 of the way in to move the love angle forward and give him the freedom to shack up with the main character. It was totally pointless, horrific, coloured my whole view of the story, and rendered the whole story unbelievable - he lost the centre of his universe in April and we’re all supposed to go “Awwww” that he’s over it by Christmas.

sorry - rant over. As many pps I read the christmassy bits of A Country Child, Green Knowe, Wind in the Willows, Poirot. I also highly recommend Rumpole.

The Christmas Court set in 1051 I love it comes out every year.

Placemarking and also to add another vote for Christmas Chronicles…gorgeous book!

Jean Stubbs - Charades and Kelly Park
Fannie Flagg - A Redbird Christmas
Miss Read
Susan Hill - The Magic Apple Tree
Laura Ingalls Wilder - The Long Winter

Thank goodness! I absolutely hated it too!! Horrible characters

I do, however, love the Dark is Rising and the Christmas chapter of Wind in the Willows

amazing, thank you everyone. I will be busy looking them all up. 😀