Product Description

From the abundant writing on Christmas - historical, literary, popular, mythical - comes this eclectic anthology which includes familiar pieces by Betjeman, Auden, Hardy and Dickens, as well as more obscure extracts. The selection ranges from Milton's "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" to Wendy Cope's rueful "A Christmas Poem", and from accounts of Christmas Day at the North Pole, and in the trenches in 1914, to Christmas as celebrated by the England cricket team in Australia.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #207539 in Books
• Published on: 1999-12-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
A Christmas Poem

At Christmas little children sing and merry bells jingle,
The cold winter air makes our hands and faces tingle
And happy families go to church and cheerily they mingle
And the whole business is unbelievably dreadful, if you're single.

Simon Rae's brilliant The Faber Book of Christmas is a bold collection of musings on Christmas past, present and future and scopes the centuries for poems, stories, essays and anecdotes from the pens of the mighty, logging all the emotions that enforced merriment can bring on the hardworking soul. From musings on the traditional and sneaky peaks into the mindsets of those for whom Christmas is something of a chore, Rae pulls the likes of Wendy Cope and John Milton together with Auden and Dickens while scanning all things Jingle Bells across the world.

Rae maintains a reasonable balance between loving and loathing and presents a thoroughly subversive anthology which manages to cover just about every possible angle, leaving the reader in little doubt that whatever their own personal feelings about the onset of the tinsel and toyshop season, there is someone somewhere living the dream--or the nightmare--with them.

Intriguing, challenging and irreverent to the last, The Faber Book of Christmas, is a must-have for cynics seeking a source of razor-sharp quotations to cover all eventualities at the sherry-and-mince-pie reception but most of all its a spirited dip-into read that will long outlive the Christmas tree and Playstations. --Susan Harrison

Customer Reviews

An excellent anthology of the festive season
I have read many books on christmas - short stories, cookery, christmas history and poems. This book provides a wonderful cornucopia of christmas gems. It contains a good mix of everything and is an an honest 'tip of the hat' to the season. It is not sugar coated nor dour but rather pulls together christmas memories, poems, stories, recipes from bygone years thru to now and delivers an intelligent, engaging and enjoyable mix of christmas spirit.