2021 Holiday Reads

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 Mystery
• Nicholas Blake: The Sad Variety
• Carol Carnac: Crossed Skis
• Michael Connelly: The Dark Hours
• Moray 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 Mumming
• Karen Menuhin: Murder at Melrose Court
• Ngaio 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 For
• Rosamunde 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 Christmas
• Arthur Conan Doyle: The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
• Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol
• Frances Hodgson Burnett: Little Lord Fauntleroy (screen version only)
• Terry Pratchett: Hogfather
• Dorothy 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