Charles Harris author ~

CHRISTMAS READING

Merry Christmas. What are you planning to read over Christmas?

Here’s a Yuletide taster menu for you, from the top of my To Be Read pile. Something to fill in deadly gaps between TV Xmas Specials.

Last month, I praised Claire Keegan’s Christmas-set Small Things Like These. I’ve read it twice this year and intend to spend some of the next few days looking more closely.

We don’t talk enough about close-reading, but it’s something I’m starting to explore for myself. Going back over good books and seeing how beautifully they’re put together. Just like I might stand in the National Gallery and examine the brush-strokes of a Rembrandt.

Last month, I also read Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol for the first time. One of those books we all think we know, mainly because the story is constantly being told on screen. Reading the story itself, I found many gems that never reach the movies, some that are probably unfilmable.

What I also didn’t know was that Dickens wrote many other Christmas stories, doubtless discovering that they sold well, as have many authors today. They are a revelation. I’m in the middle of The Chimes – which seems to be much darker than Christmas Carol. Look out for the many collections online.

Breaking the law

Being the kind of person who’s always in the middle of many books, I’m also half-way through Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot’s Christmas. If you know Christie, then you probably know what you’ll get. A country house murder, a dozen suspects, and Poirot nosing out the answer.

I like Christie, though I know many sniff at her. She can create great characters – Poirot being one. She can, to be honest, also create clichés, and there are a few here.

But her writing has lasted better than many of her contemporaries. It’s always clear and unpretentious, which is more than can be said for others. And she knows how to weave a tale.

On the lighter side, I’m looking forward to Rumpole at Christmas by the great John Mortimer. This is a another collection of short festive stories, but rather less ghostly than the Dickens. I’ve already dipped in for the first, and it’s no disappointment. Humorous tales with a legal twist.

Anti-Christmas

Talking of which, my eye was drawn to a John Grisham anti-seasonal novel – Skipping Christmas. Luther and Nora Krank have decided to duck out of all the Yuletide mess and disappear on a cruise instead. Only, of course, things won’t be so easy.

You might have seen the movie made from it, Christmas with the Kranks. The blurb calls it ‘iconic’, but somehow I missed it. The book sounds fun, though.

Other Christmas fare I’m tempted by includes Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle. Truman Capote’s more serious A Christmas Memory sounds a fascinating mix with “nostalgic, semi-autobiographical portraits of childhood to more unsettling tales of darkness beneath the festive glitter”.

And while Isabel Allende’s In the Midst of Winter may not technically be a Christmas novel, it looks to be an interesting literary take on the old caught-together-in-a-snowstorm trope.

Since we’re unlikely to get snow in London soon, this could be the closest I get to to a white Christmas this year.

Tell me what Christmas books you’ve liked – or hated – or would love to read. I’ll share them and let’s keep the holiday spirit going as long as we can.

Season’s greetings