Christmas Reads

We’ve asked a selection of some of our members about the books that they’ve most enjoyed reading over Christmases Past and what they’ve got lined up this year for a spot of festive reading.

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DIANE ATKINSON

Favourite Reads from Christmas Past:

  • A Fortnight in September by RC Sherriff
  • They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple
  • Transcription by Kate Atkinson

Reads for Christmas Present:

  • Staring at God, Britain in the Great War by Simon Heffer
  • Rebel Writers by Celia Brayfield
  • There Are Kingdoms, by Kevin Barry

DAISY DUNN

Favourite Reads from Christmas Past:

  • Christmas Pudding by Nancy Mitford
  • Carry on, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
  • Darling Winston: Forty Years of Letters Between Winston Churchill and his Mother by David Lough

Reads for Christmas Present:

  • Crusaders: An Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands by Dan Jones
  • Lines Off by Hugo Williams
  • A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote

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TRAVIS ELBOROUGH

Favourite Reads from Christmas Past:

  • The Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris
  • The Art of Eating by M F K Fischer
  • Reb Kringle by Nathan Englander (in his collection For the Relief of Unbearable Urges), and The Loudest Voice by Grace Paley

Reads for Christmas Present:

  • The Private Life of Lord Byron by Anthony Petrie's
  • The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare
  • Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country by Edward Parnell

HARRIET EVANS

Favourite Reads from Christmas Past:

  • Lanterns Across the Snow by Susan Hill
  • The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L Sayers
  • Christmas at the New Yorker

Reads for Christmas Present:

  • The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
  • High Rising by Angela Thirkell
  • After the Party by Cressida Connolly

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LISSA EVANS

Favourite Reads from Christmas Past:

  • Ma'am Darling by Craig Brown
  • A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols
  • The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

Reads for Christmas Present:

  • Motherwell by Deborah Orr
  • Spying in Guru Land by William Shaw (re-read)
  • Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny (re-read)

TOM HOLLAND

Favourite Reads from Christmas Past:

  • The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
  • Why Can The Dead Do Such Great Things?: Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation by Robert Bartlett
  • Collected Poems 1945-1990 by R. S. Thomas

Reads for Christmas Present:

  • Dostoevsky: A Writer in his Time by Joseph Frank
  • Reformations: The Early Modern World, 1450-1650 by Carlos M. N. Eire
  • Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson

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NIKITA LALWANI

Favourite Reads from Christmas Past:

  • Grand Union by Zadie Smith 
  • Late in the Day by Tessa Hadley
  • Amongst Women by John McGahern 

Reads for Christmas Present:

  • Collected Stories by Maeve Brennan 
  • Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick
  • Collected Stories by Jean Stafford 

JOHN MCNALLY

Reads from Christmas Past:

  • Father Christmas Goes On Holiday by Raymond Briggs
  • Seasonal Suicide Notes by Roger Lewis
  • Towards the End of the Morning by Michael Frayn

Reads for Christmas Present:

  • Kiss Me Chudleigh: The World According to Auberon Waugh by Auberon Waugh and William Cook
  • Mr Know-It-All: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder by John Waters
  • Martin Parr in Wales by Martin Parr

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GILES MILTON

Favourite Reads from Christmas Past:

  • Elmet by Fiona Mozley
  • The Life and Death of St Kilda by Tom Steel
  • A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby

Reads for Christmas Present:

  • Lady in Waiting by Anne Glenconner
  • The House by the Lake by Thomas Harding
  • HHhH by Laurent Binet

SARA WHEELER

Favourite Reads from Christmas Past:

  • A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark
  • My Ántonia by Willa Cather
  • Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty

Reads for Christmas Present:

  • The Other Half: A Self Portrait by Kenneth Clark
  • On Chapel Sands by Laura Cumming
  • The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton