Let It Snow: Holiday-esque Reads
YWR #137
There are two kinds of people in the world: people who want all the holiday aesthetic, and people who are wrong.
No, I’m kidding! Obviously, the two kinds of people are the people who think we should all only be reading serious books, and the people who are wrong.
Wait, are the two kinds of people the people who understand Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s irresistible charisma and the people who are wrong?
Never mind! The point is, last year, I casually tossed off a few holiday book suggestions on my Instagram (all books and pets, because who has the energy to keep up a fully dedicated bookstagram? APPARENTLY NOT I) and the feedback was so resoundingly enthusiastic that it made me realize that there is a Big Audience for Holiday Reading.
And since we have something like 36 days until the year of our Lord 2024, let’s not waste it in contentious debate. Let’s instead use it for its intended purpose, which is to cozy up with holiday-esque reads whilst wondering if we should instead be reading Lauren Groff’s The Vaster Wilds so we have something of presumed merit to put on our currently paper-thin Best of 2023 reading lists.
Read on for a lightning round of holiday romances and mysteries, from Christmas to New Year’s to Hanukkah, from decked halls to the barest touch of a winter season!
Happy Holidays: Holiday Romances & Comedies
The Christmas Orphans Club - Four friends establish an unconventional “family” Christmas tradition, but what happens as their circumstances change?
Verdict: Super cute and fun. Reasonably fresh take on well-trodden territory. Amongst the better use of pop culture references I can remember.
Season of Love - Artist Miriam’s Jewish great aunt dies and leaves her the family Christmas tree farm, but the current manager Noelle is determined to run Miriam off.
Verdict: Sweet! Funny! Action packed! A nice bundling of traditional feelings with non-traditional circumstances (queer love, Jewish Christmas, etc.)
Winter Solstice - Five people across generations find themselves in a Scottish town for Christmas, all nursing their own wounds and finding solace together.
Verdict: You know I love Rosamunde Pilcher for her thoughtful, unsentimental takes on romance, and this is everything you want in a wintery tale. School caroling! Troublesome family members! Shopping in the main village! Getting snowed in! Sunday roasts!
As you might expect, all of these are high-lamb reads. Find out what that means HERE.
And only if you must:
OK, I really tried to find a Hanukkah romcom, and this bestseller has a really cute premise (the rabbi’s daughter, secretly a best selling author of Christmas romcoms as well as someone with debilitating ME, is thrown together with her summer camp archenemy, Jacob, who’s hosting NYC’s biggest Hanukkah party.)
This book is a tender and bighearted love letter to Judaism but otherwise is not great. Waaaaay too much showing vs telling, and virtually everything was either unbelievable and/or poorly resolved. I’ve read worse, so if you’re eager for a Jewish holiday romcom, this’ll do I guess. But I can’t wholeheartedly recommend.
The Darkest Night: Holiday Mysteries
The Usual Santas - A collection of mystery, crime, and noir short stories around the holidays, with various degrees of holiday involvement from Santa-crime to snowy New Year’s Eves.
Verdict - surprisingly good! I don’t typically love short stories but this was an excellent and wide-ranging collection, from a Sherlock Holmes-esque tale to early 20th century India to Bangkok to mall Santas.
Hercule Poirot Christmas - The classic sleuth is back to investigate a closed-house Christmas Eve murder.
Verdict: I mean, it’s Agatha Christie + Christmas. You know what you’re getting. Dread and blood, plus fir garlands. An excellent entry for this sort of thing.
A Fatal Grace - The second entry in the Inspector Gamache series centers around a murder in a small Quebec village, at the holidays.
Verdict: Extremely atmospheric in a country Christmas way. I’m working through this series and am getting a tad tired (like how many murders can one village have before they wonder if they are the problem), but this one’s still good.
I mean, these are all mysteries and people die in them but generally not all that graphically. So do with that info what you will, emotional lamb-wise.
New Year’s Reads
Rules of Civility - On the last night of 1937, a young woman and her friend meet a well-off gentleman in a bar, starting a year-long journey ranging through all the echelons of New York society.
Verdict: Classic Amor Towles. Less wry than A Gentleman in Moscow but more “happens” so some people prefer this novel of his. Wordy, smart, observant.
A Long Way Down - Four strangers with the same plan meet on the roof of a skyscraper on New Year’s Eve and instead decide to support each other for the next year.
Verdict: Classic Nick Hornby, both wise and funny while also dark (I mean, it’s a roof-jumping premise, you know?) Pretty good.
Anxious People - On New Year’s Eve, a Swedish apartment open house becomes a hostage situation with the most unruly group of hostages ever.
Verdict: Classic Frederik Backman, a stylized caper that’s alternately hilarious and deeply melancholy, IMO the perfect reflection of New Year’s Eve. I love this book, while my sweetheart couldn’t even get past the first chapter. You gotta like the kind of Oscar Wildean theatricalness of the matter. Anyway, read it and lemme know what you think.
Do you have a favorite winter read? Do you hate this genre and wish it were January already? Are you an Anxious People fan or are you wrong? Tell us in the comments!
Thanksgiving Leftovers:
All links this week go to Bookshop.org, which supports indie bookstores and is offering free shipping this weekend! I believe in you and your ability to send better gifts, rather than shopping on Amazon for books.
If you’re looking for something different, don’t forget to check the archive!
That pretty Christmas tree photo is courtesy of Sebastian Buck who has the BEST photography including this photo which really should inspire a fairy tale.
We’re just a week or two out from my year-end top ten list, so now’s the time to share this newsletter with a friend so 2024 can be the year of my book recommending glow-up and I finally have something interesting to share with my therapist. Share, like, comment, rinse, repeat, resist, be kind and rewind! thxily
