84 books like A Child's Christmas in Wales

In this Christmas story, Ebenezer Scrooge, a stingy man, finds redemption in a magical way. Visited by the spirits of Christmas past, present, and future, he sees that if he continues in the same selfish way, his life will have no meaning to anyone. I re-read this story often.

I am constantly amazed by how believable the magical elements of the story feel. Do spirits really visit Mr. Scrooge? Or is it his subconscious mind sending himself warning dreams? Either way, I am swept away with pure joy at the end every time. It’s as if the author has reached deep into my soul and ripped away my inner Scrooge. And that’s the real magic.

This book is sort of an alternate take of On the Road. Cody Pomeroy here is Dean Moriarty, this book is his legend, and instead of unravelling it all in a chronological spiel it's the koans and page-long dreams of remembrance, some of the richest extended prose he ever made.

The writing is true to the soul and heart of the continent and it captures the electric twentieth century.

He wanted to roll up all his books together, standardize the names, and call it The Duluoz Legend. When I read him now I think of all those words as a part of it. There are so many pieces and places to dive into, but if you're ready for the deep stuff then get digging into this golden loam and be glad.

I was so overwhelmed by the perfection of this American masterwork that I sought out the founder of The Thomas Wolfe Society, the greatest Thomas Wolfe collector who ever lived and who will ever live, and became his very close friend.

This is a huge book, with the music of pitch-perfect prosody from beginning to end, and yet it's only part of a much greater whole—every one of Wolfe's books connect together in some way, forming a massive cadency of music in words. If you examine them, there's only two main branches (Eugene Gant as the protagonist in one, and Monk Webber as the protagonist in the other). But it's really all one big expanding fable. This volume has, in my opinion, the richest writing, from the opening proem to the tiny diamond-sharp moving-picture painting of the final line.

Everything F. Scott Fitzgerald ever touched with his pen glimmered and was gold. Just think of Tender Is the Night—the title comes from Keats, and Keats is the living lyre, and it's a fine, long book that haunts you. But the place where I first entered his world is the fat blue collected stories that came out in 1989, edited by my late friend Dr. Matthew J. Bruccoli.

This was the book that first made me see that gorgeous writing was everything, that it was the mode and method and the way. Every one of the stories in this gigantic book has something in it that is sensitive and evocative and lives beyond its page and time.

This fine coming-of-age novel was originally published in two big red volumes. It's large and reads like an enormous European tapestry laid out in some cold castle museum, with vivid dyes and a thousand patterned intricacies to ponder. It was a literary sensation when it was published, a favorite of the young romantics of the WWI generation, and Mackenzie followed it up with several branching-off sequels. He writes with such vividry that the dusky London streets and country cottages in this book are fresh and living even now. This book affected a young F. Scott Fitzgerald so much that in the early drafts of Fitz's first novel, he actually copped the name of the protagonist of this book.

Can I make this list and not include a golden-age detective story set in a country house at Christmas? This one has all the ingredients required for an afternoon by the fire, looking out at the wintry weather—a locked room, an appealing detective, and a cast of people compelled, rather unwisely, to spend Christmas in each other’s company. "If you ask me, there very likely wouldn’t have been a murder at all if it hadn’t been for him getting ideas about peace and goodwill, and assembling all these highly uncongenial people under the same roof at the same time.” 

I love this book because the characters are just as odd as the author and just as interesting. Also, Capote’s rural childhood environment reminds me of aspects of my own. And, as usual, his writing is top-notch. Moving and heartfelt stories that transported me to a lost era and the sweetness and anxieties of childhood.

Shaun Tan is an artist and writer, and an Oscar winner to boot, and I love the dazzling originality and quirkiness of his work. This one’s on my list because it includes the (very) short story "The Nameless Holiday". Which is not at all about Christmas. But sort of is, in an opposite-of-Christmas sort of way. (No spoilers - you really have to read it to see what I mean.) Anyway, late December always feels like a brilliant time to read it again. Another one I go back to every year. 

I’ve had so much joy imagining events below stairs in Baker Street, it would be wrong not to include a tale from above stairs. This one finds the great detective grappling with a Christmas goose, a stranger’s hat, and the stolen jewel of the title. My father used to bring me the Conan Doyle books from the library when I was a child, and would often wonder aloud what tales Mr. Holmes’s housekeeper could have told. Many years later, as a birthday gift for him, I wrote my first Mrs. Hudson novel. 

Christmas is a time for nostalgia, and this one takes me back to my childhood. I remember sitting mesmerised by Margaret Tempest’s gorgeous festive illustrations while the story of these woodland creatures was read to me. Gentle, atmospheric Yuletide fare that makes me want to go tobogganing under the stars.