Books At Christmas

Books At Christmas

In recent years Americans have become inundated with television ads for new cars during the festive season.  We'll see at least three in any one-hour program.  In these colourful little ads, delighted flannel-clad family members rush to their kitchen windows on Christmas morning to gape at a brand-new car, shiny and beribboned, parked in their snow-covered drive.  A lot of grinning and jumping up and down with glee then ensues.  The car companies seem bent on convincing the public that giving people expensive new cars at Christmas is a holiday tradition not to be ignored.  Frankly, I don't buy it.  And yes, the pun was intended.

There are all sorts of gift-givers during holiday time, from those who decry materialism and refuse to participate in any sort of festivity that requires legal tender to those who lavish the best of everything on offer for their friends and family.  Personally, the practice of following the Magi's lead and giving gifts to those we love is one I hold dear.  But I'm not a person who stands in the cold outside the local big box store on the morning after Thanksgiving, pawing the ground with the rest of the herd as I wait for the doors to open.  No, I prefer quieter gifts.  I make things, I bake things.  And best of all, I give books.  Lots of books.

When you tie a ribbon round a book at Christmas you are giving so much more than words printed on paper.  You are giving a ticket to other worlds.  You are giving magic.  You are setting a spark to imagination and encouraging empathy to bloom.  Inside that rectangular box is travel and knowledge, laughter and tears.  It's my belief that every book we read changes us, just a little bit.  We see a bit clearer, we feel a bit deeper.  Our hearts, and sometimes even our minds, open just a crack wider.  Now seriously, what new car can do that?

So in the spirit of the season, here are some book ideas for this year.  I do hope you find one you'll want to wrap up for somebody else.  And maybe one, or two, for yourself. 

As usual, just click on the picture and you'll be whisked away to read more about each book.  And though these links take you to Amazon, I would encourage you to purchase from your local bookshops.  You'll find even more wondrous ideas there, I promise!

Merry Christmas to all of you.

xx, 

p

Where the Crawdads Sing

by Delia Owens

Carnival of the Animals

by Elizabeth Varadan

After the Party

by Cressida Connolly

All the Queen's Corgis

by Penny Junor

The Secret Gardeners

Britain's Creatives Reveal Their Private Sanctuaries

by Frances Lincoln

Ocean Meets Sky

by The Fan Brothers

A Place For Us

by Fatima Farheen Mirza

The Faber Book of Christmas

from Liberty of London

The Ghost Stories of M.R. James

The Light in the Dark

A Winter Journal

by Horatio Clare

Buckingham Palace

The Interiors

by Ashley Hicks

Grace

Thirty Years of Fashion at Vogue

by Grace Coddington

Good Rosie!

by Kate Dicamillo

pictures by Harry Bliss