Author Les Standiford delves into the story of one of the most ubiquitous tales in Western culture in The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens's 'A Christmas Carol' Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits. Beginning with Dickens' own impoverished childhood, Standiford chronicles the writers' ascent to stardom and fall to near bankruptcy at the time of his penning A Christmas Carol in 1843. With his story of the miserly Scrooge, Dickens was able to turn his career around and ignite a public sentimentality that had been long missing from the Christmas holiday (along with a massive increase in turkey sales).

Be sure to also check out some of Oxford's movie adaptations of Dickens' classic. HM

Cruel Yule!

If the upcoming holidays bring out your inner Grinch, you may want to take an irreverent look at the season with comic David Sedaris. In Holidays on Ice, he describes his hilarious stint as an elf in Macy’s Santa Land. Sedaris shares his frustration while viewing a local school’s Christmas Pageant. He compares Dutch and American holiday customs in a fairly obnoxious way.Even Halloween and Easter traditions provide a target for his teasing. While this book tends to be offensive and off-beat, it made me laugh. It might be just the thing needed to beat the holiday blues. DB