December RandomCAT: Seasonal Reading: Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa

Let's read seasonal books in December, the hectic last month of the year. Many people enjoy doing special Christmas reading. However, there are also other December religious days including Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. If other December reading appeals more to you, there are winter (in the Northern Hemisphere) sports such as ice skating and skiing. December's challenge is to read something seasonal which appeals to you.

New Christmas books are published every year. In addition to books, some authors write Christmas stories. I found "20 classic Christmas short stories" at https://teaandinksociety.com/classic-christmas-short-stories-read-online/
These stories, some by famous authors who you might not think of writing Christmas stories are free.

Please excuse me for posting a bit early. I wanted to post before someone else started a Christmas thread. After all, LT's SantaThing is now available for sign up.

Planning on two Christmas mysteries in December:

Murder at Melrose Court - K.C. Menuhin
The Santa Klaus Murder - M Hay

I am planning on a couple of seasonal reads with An English Murder by Cyril Hare and Christmas at Lilac Cottage by Holly Martin

I just received a copy of The Christmas Tree so I plan to read that.

I think I'll probably read Christmas in Absaroka County by Craig Johnson which is a collection of 4 short stories.

I might re-read The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder, though I think it was only last year that I read it. Another possibility is Last Winter's Snow by Hans M. Hirschi

I think I have a couple that are cold/winter themed:

An Unwanted Guest / Shari Lapena
The Overnight Guest / Heather Gudenkauf

I know this challenge will mainly be for seasonal fiction, but I'm going to include the book I was planning on reading anyway over Advent: Walter Brueggemann's Names for the Messiah: An Advent Study. I can't actually think of any seasonal fiction on my shelves (apart from kids' picture books!).

>8 Jackie_K: I have lots of kids' picture books too. I am sure those are okay for this challenge if you select them. One of my faves is Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins.

I will likely read a British Library Crime Classic: The Santa Klaus Murder, Mystery in White, or the anthology Crimson Snow.

I'll be re-reading Dickens' A Christmas Carol for sure, and maybe a first read for Hercule Poirot's Christmas.

>8 Jackie_K:, >9 LadyoftheLodge: It's fine to read nonfiction. Also children's books are fine.

I'll also be re-reading A Christmas Carol, along with another of my favorites A Christmas Memory.

I'd recommend The Homecoming by Earl Hamner. It's a delightful little book, I'll probably do a reread.

Those looking for more ideas might find Blackwell's Five Foot Shelf with a Christmas theme helpful.

I like to read A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, and The Cricket on the Hearth. I also like to read The Blue Carbuncle during the holidays. And I always enjoy reading The Night Before Christmas.

My favorite seasonal readings include A Child's Christmas in Wales. I own several versions with different artwork, and also an audio version read by Dylan Thomas.

I have finished Tolkien's Letters from Father Christmas. Lovely.

As well as the book mentioned above, Names for the Messiah, I've also started reading a Church Times collection of columns, News of Great Joy: The Church Times Christmas Collection, curated by Hugh Hillyard-Parker. It has pieces suitable from Advent to Epiphany and beyond, so I'll be reading it into the New Year.

I've finished Christmas in Absaroka County by Craig Johnson which is a group of 4 short stories featuring Sheriff Walt Longmire.

I also finished Christmas with the Cornish Girls which was a follow up to the first novel in this series. This is set in WWII and deals with the careers of the three girls, particularly with the sister who goes into nursing and ends up delivering a baby during an air raid.

Reread, review is from 2012:


The Homecoming by Earl Hamner

If you've seen the television movie "The Homecoming" starring Patricia O'Neal then you know the story, because the movie is very similar to the original book. The television series "The Waltons" was based upon the characters in this and other books by the author, Earl Hamner, Jr.

It's Christmas Eve, 1933, and snowing in the mountains of Virginia. Clay Spencer is expected home from his job but is running late...and finally his wife sends their eldest, Clay-Boy, to see if he can find someone to help him find his Daddy.

Great characters, a pleasant and heartwarming read. Recommended.

Rock Crystal, one of the stories in Bunte Steine, tells the story of two children who get lost in a heavy snowfall while walking back home to their village on Christmas Eve.

I have just completed An English Murder by Cyril Hare, although set at Christmas in an English Country Manor, there wasn't a lot of festivity in this book. Christmas was simply the excuse to have the various guests gather together.

I read The Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay, an entertaining country house Christmas mystery which suffered a little bit from having incompetent police investigation.

I simply read for winter/cold

Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition / Owen Beattie, John Geiger
4 stars

This book first looks at the Franklin Expedition in the mid-1800s to find the Northwest Passage. Franklin and his entire crew of 129 people and two ships disappeared. In the years following, others set out to find them or some clue as to what had happened. In the early 1980s, Owen Beattie, a forensic anthropologist, and a team of others set out to the graves of three of the expedition members on Beatty Island to dig them up to do autopsies to see if that would tell them what had happened.

Surprisingly, I found the second half more interesting than the first. I guess all of it was potentially interesting to me, but I was surprised to be more engrossed in the parts as the modern-day scientists dug up the graves to find extremely well-preserved bodies and to read the details of their testing and what they found. Be warned that there are photos of the bodies that were dug up; of course, there are other interesting photos, as well.

I've visited Thrush Green with a reread of Winter in Thrush Green by Miss Read. It has three parts: The Coming of Winter, Christmas at Thursh Green, and The New Year. Perfect for a seasonal read.

>27 clue: One of my favorites! I am up for a reread on that one too. I love Miss Read stories.

>28 LadyoftheLodge: I haven't read these in order and I think there are three I haven't read at all. I've decided to make Thrush Green a category next year and read the the whole series. This is the second book and I don't have the first, but the library does so I can get started early in the year.

The Christmas Hirelings by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. It was a free audible back in 2018. It is a short story read by Richard Armitage.

I have completed a second book for this challenge, Small Things Like These by Clarie Keegan. A small book at 114 pages, I absolutely loved it!

I've read God Rest Ye, Royal Gentlemen by Rhys Bowen for both the GenreCAT and RandomCAT this month. Although this is the most current of the Royal Spyness Mysteries, I read it because I wanted to read a Christmas mystery. I found the first half of this book very slow going, but really enjoyed the second half when more was happening. The title is a play on words from the hymn, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen; however, the title reflects the story since the several royal gentlemen are murdered by the same person. There are a number of suspects, but I did not expect the culprit until near the end of the story. I prefer Ms. Bowen's Molly Murphy mysteries featuring an immigrant to New York City over these Royal Spyness mysteries which feature Lady Georgiana Rannoch who is connected to the British royalty although the British history is interesting.

>32 sallylou61: I've read the first in the Royal Spyness mysteries and gave it 3 stars. I might make it to the second in that series or first in the Molly Murphy ones next year. We'll see.

Welcome to RandomKIT 2022!

The January thread is here:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/337455

I read a cute family drama, The Christmas Wedding by James Patterson

I listed to Christmas Eve, 1914 by Charles Olivier. A drama production by full cast that puts the reader behind British lines on the Western Front during Christmas. We know the story of the unofficial truce to bury dead, sing carols, and give thanks. It is heartfelt.

I re-read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and after each "Stave" I listened to the audiobook, read by Jim Dale, which was well done.

I am reading The Quiet Little Woman by Louisa May Alcott

Completed Kissing Christmas Goodbye for Christmas and mystery.

Starting A Christmas Requiem, a novella by S. J. Parris

>29 clue: I found many of them at used book sales! In October, I found several hardcover ones that were in perfect condition.

I am reading for the winter season rather than a specific holiday

The Overnight Guest / Heather Gudenkauf
4.5 stars

Current day: Wylie is a true crime writer who has left her son with her ex-husband to head to an isolated rural area where she has rented an old farmhouse to be able to better concentrate on her writing. On a cold, blizzardy, freezing-rain/snow-filled night, she finds a little boy curled up in the snow outside the house. She brings him in to warm him up, but he’s not talking as to how or why he was there.

2020: 12-year olds Josie and Becky are best friends, but tragedy strikes when Becky stays overnight one night. The farmhouse then houses two murdered people and two people have disappeared. Josie is the only one who managed to get away.

Timeline unclear initially: a mother and daughter are kept locked in a basement, with an abusive man/father coming to visit occasionally.

Wow, this pulled me in right away and I wanted to keep reading! Unfortunately, for me, I was reading before bed (twice) and especially the first night, I had a hard time getting to sleep! (Which, really, in a thriller or horror book, is a good thing!). All three storylines were appealing to me, and the author brought them together very well.

A Frontier Christmas by William Johnstone
Westerns are not my usual fare but this one was on the library shelf and it looked worth a try. It was an engrossing thriller with the added heartache of a diphtheria outbreak along with the quarantine and treatment, all making it a more complex story. I enjoyed it but the number of bodies killed by gunshot wounds as well as disease increased alarmingly, with an untold final tally. Not sure if I'll try another one by Johnstone.

>43 VivienneR: my father used to read Johnstone westerns, but said he didn't like the ones that the son wrote after his father's demise.

Like some mysteries some westerns are just too bloody for me. I can recommend Louis L'Amour as a consistently good read with a minimum of blood and no graphic stuff. My favorite of all his books is Conagher. The movie with Sam Elliott is pretty faithful to the plot.

Another Christmas theme for me, Ghosts of Christmas Past by Tim Martin.

Dachshund Through the Snow by David Rosenfelt
A Christmas wish tree leads Andy Carpenter to a boy who needs help and a jacket for his dachshund. A nice seasonal mystery with some courtroom drama and humour thrown in - and of course - dogs.

I do love Christmas novels and other seasonal winter reading! While I don't participate in this challenge anymore this year, I am definitely saving this thread for future reference.

I've finished Walter Brueggemann's Names for the Messiah: An Advent Study. This book was quite small so didn't feel like there was enough 'meat' for me, and I think it will probably be better as a small group study.

>43 VivienneR:, >44 fuzzi: I second the recommendation of Louis L'Amour. My favorite writer of westerns is C.J. Petit.

I just finished The Winter Bride by Anne Gracie, an enjoyable historical romance. The book is set during winter with a few references to December/Christmas.

I have completed my read of Christmas at Lilac Cottage which, although predictable, was full of Christmas and so I enjoyed it.

I read Meet Me in Mayfair, one of the novellas in the How the Dukes Stole Christmas historical romance anthology. (The other stories in the collection didn't work enough for me to complete them, though that could've just been me as the wrong reader at the wrong moment.)

The Usual Santas with foreword by Peter Lovesey
I loved this collection of short stories. They were a change from the usual sugary fare found at this time of year and included some very dark stories. But my absolute favourite was The Usual Santas by Mick Herron, which was liberally sprinkled with witty lines. My favourite was "The buffet that year was particularly handsome ... There was a huge plateful of turkey and stuffing sandwiches; there were Christmas pizzas - deep and crisp and even more cheesy."

Some of the stories rated only three stars but the five-star story from Mick Herron brought the collection up to an average four stars.

I've accidentally stumbled on two mysteries set at Christmas time (next up on my TBR). The Lost Man by Jane Harper, taking place in Australia, and Dying to Sin y Stephen Booth, taking place in the Peak District in England.

While shopping for his Christmas book, Murder on a Winter's Night jumped into the basket and refused to return to the shelf. My excuse and I'm sticking to it.
Several of these I had read before, but it was an enjoyable read by a variety of authors.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this seasonal CAT. Hope you enjoyed your reading.

Late in posting: I read two Christmas themed books this month.
Mr Dickens and His Carol I loved this one--right book at the right time! I listened to this as I worked to decorate the house for the holiday. It set the mood and also was a wonderful re-imagining of Dickens' A Christmas Carol. I appreciated the research by the author to make the story authentic and the imagination she used to round out the plot.
A Redbird Christmas This was a disappointment, but it may be the right book for someone else. I picked it up based on the author's reputation, but it fell way short of my expectations in writing style and plot (banal). The setting and characters had more flare and I'd recommend for anyone who enjoys bird watching.

I ended up reading a couple Christmas books over the holiday, but I didn't love either of them. 25 Days 'til Christmas by Poppy Alexander was surprisingly dreary and depressing, and The Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay was fine but nothing special.

>57 beebeereads: I read that one before LibraryThing, and I remember enjoying it when I read it. I was familiar with the area, and I did enjoy the birds and her characters. I had read other books by Flagg so I knew what to expect writing-wise. Since it was a Christmas book, I didn't expect a lot of plot depth, so my expectations were probably lower than yours.