Round the Christmas Fire: Festive Stories
The very cover is enough to get you into the Christmas spirit here! Sometimes you really should judge a book by its cover - and this one got me into the Christmas spirit straight away. Fabulously festive stories from a whole host of amazing writers including Truman Capote, John Cheever, Nancy Mitford, PG Wodehouse, Sue Townsend and - of course it wouldn't be Christmas without him - Charles Dickens. (As I wrote this blog a little ‘Dickens’ candle arrived on my desk. Created by Jardins d’Ecrivains, they explain that it is filled with festive Dickensian charm ....)

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The Great British Christmas - compiled by Maria Hubert
A trip into British festive history with extracts from the writings of the likes of Dickens, with his Christmas tree memories, Samuel Pepys and Thomas Hardy, carols and poems from Rudyard Kipling and Thomas  Malory, recipes from Mrs Beeton - her very own Christmas cake - and the Court Chef to Queen Victoria - Windsor Castle Mincemeat. This last one being useful if you are catering for a big party (240lb raisins, 400lb currants ...) but the author has helpfully reduced quantities down to a more manageable level so you can enjoy a Victorian delicacy with cooking for half the country.

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I Heart Christmas - Lindsey Kelk
Living the dream in New York in the run up to Christmas is all very well until husbands start taking festive celebrations into their own hands and UK waifs and strays start turning up on the doorstep. Fans of Kelk's earlier 'I Heart London/Paris/etc' will enjoy this festive update on her heroine's glamorous NY life.

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Yours Truly - Kirsty Greenwood
Sadly, there isn’t a place called Little Trooley, with chocolate-box-pretty cottages arranged around a village green, and an idyllic pub where locals and visiting damsels in distress take refuge from the snow in the run up to Christmas for bonding sessions and drink-fuelled fun. The idyllic pub doesn’t have the hunkiest barman in the world who is the perfect antidote for a confused-bride-to-be having second thoughts about her less-than-perfect would-be spouse and controlling family. There isn’t a hypnotist called Amazing Brian who hilariously hypnotises her into seeing the error of her ways – and helps her save the community in the process. But, in a Christmas book as funny and entertaining as this one, we can imagine there is – and enjoy the magic of pretending that it’s all real, just for a while. Fans of Marian Keyes will love first-time author Kirsty Greenwood (though e-book readers may have already found her online, ranked as she is among the top 10 e-book authors).

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The best Christmas book of all ...

And finally - my fifth Christmas choice has to be my favourite Christmas classic, the one I re-read every year, possibly the best Christmas story ever written? No surprises, it's A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. 'A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears .. God bless us, every one!'

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