We’re less than two weeks away from Advent and the beginning of December, this year’s incarnation of “Festive Tasks” includes a “holiday books” square, CrimeReads recently published their 2021 Holiday Gift Guide, and I just succumbed to the purchase of electric tealights for my holiday candle holders so as to be able to enjoy them for more than five minutes at a time even with two lively and inquisitive cats around … so I guess that means it’s time to put together my holiday reading list as well. Or rather, put it it order — after all, it’s not like I haven’t been out and about collecting books for this year’s list for the past couple of weeks already! So, here we go:
2021 Core List
Donna Andrews: The Twelve Jays of Christmas- Donna Andrews: How the Finch Stole Christmas!
- John Banville: Snow
Anthony Berkeley: The Wintringham MysteryNicholas Blake: The Sad VarietyCarol Carnac: Crossed SkisMichael Connelly: The Dark HoursMoray Dalton: The Night of Fear (reread)Jessica Fletcher (Donald Bain): Manhattans and Murder- Jessica Fletcher (Donald Bain): A Little Yuletide Murder
- Jessica Fletcher (Jon Land): Murder in Season
Martha Grimes: Jerusalem Inn (reread)- Mons Kallentoft: Midwinter Sacrifice
Rupert Latimer: Murder After Christmas- Charlotte MacLed: Christmas Stalkings
Charlotte MacLeod: Murder Goes MummingKaren Menuhin: Murder at Melrose CourtNgaio Marsh: Off With His Head (reread)Ngaio Marsh: Tied Up in Tinsel (reread)Ngaio Marsh: Death and the Dancing Footman (reread)- Ada Moncrieff: Murder Most Festive
- Patricia Moyes: Season of Snows and Sins
Amy Pershing: An Eggnog to Die ForRosamunde Pilcher: Winter Solstice- Allie Reynolds: Shiver
- S.J. Rozan: Winter and Night
- Angela Thirkell: Christmas at High Rising
- R.D. Wingfield: Frost at Christmas
- Clifford Witting: Catt out of the Bag
Annual Christmas Rereads
Agatha Christie: The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (aka The Royal Ruby)Agatha Christie: Hercule Poirot’s ChristmasArthur Conan Doyle: The Adventure of the Blue CarbuncleCharles Dickens: A Christmas CarolFrances Hodgson Burnett: Little Lord Fauntleroy(screen version only)Terry Pratchett: HogfatherDorothy L. Sayers: The Nine Tailors(screen version only)
Short Story Anthologies
(Mix in to taste)
- Otto Penzler (ed.): The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries (Golden / Silver Age & contemporary mysteries)
- Otto Penzler (ed.): Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop (contemporary mysteries)
Murder for Christmas: Tales of Seasonal Malice (audio, Golden Age mysteries; reread)- Cecily Gayford (ed.): Murder in Midwinter (Golden & Silver Age mysteries)
- Cecily Gayford (ed.): Murder at Christmas (Golden & Silver Age mysteries)
- Cecily Gayford (ed.): Murder on a Winter’s Night (Golden & Silver Age mysteries)
- Cecily Gayford (ed.): Murder on Christmas Eve (Golden / Silver Age & contemporary mysteries)
Cecily Gayford (ed.): Murder Under the Christmas Tree (Golden / Silver Age & contemporary mysteries; mostly reread)- Cecily Gayford (ed.): A Very Murderous Christmas (Golden / Silver Age & contemporary mysteries)
- Sapere Books: Midwinter Mysteries (historical fiction)
- The Valencourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories (horror, classics)
- Tim Martin (ed.): Ghosts of Christmas Past (horror / speculative fiction; classics / contemporary / historical fiction)
- British Library (ed.): A Literary Christmas (classics)
- Oxford University Press (ed.): The Oxford Book of Chistmas Stories (classics & contemporary)
- Vintage Books (ed.): A Vintage Christmas (classics & contemporary)
- Classic Christmas Stories: A Collection of Timeless Holiday Tales (audio, classics)
- A Classic Christmas (audio, classics)
- Twelve Stories of Christmas (audio, classics)
Nonfiction
- Gerry Bowler: Christmas in the Crosshairs
- Judith Flanders: Christmas: A History
- Mark Forsyth: A Christmas Cornucopia
