5 Star Christmas Reading (And a Few Runners Up)

With no time in this busy but beloved holiday season to give individual reviews of the books I’m going to list, you will simply have to do with my placing them in 3 categories. The first is the 5 Star Recommendations which means they are among my ultimate favorites for Christmas reading. Indeed, several of these occupy some of our Yuletide hours almost every year. They cover a wide range of genres: theological, classic novels, juvenilia, modern inspirational, short stories, even history. 

However, I do not list here those readings which should be considered mandatory for Christmas; namely, the historical accounts of gospels Matthew and Luke as well as the classic Christmas poetry from the likes of G.K. Chesterton, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Dylan Thomas, Leslie Norris, Edgar Guest, T.S. Eliot, Christina Rossetti, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and many more.

The books in the second category earn 4 Stars in my reckoning as they too rate high regard. I guess that’s true of even those in the third category which I’ll simply call “Honorable Mention.” I’d recommend them all. After all, the purpose of this exercise is to provide a bit of stimulation and assistance for friends who desire to make reading an important part of their Christmas joys. So, here we go.

5 Star Recommendations

* Shepherds Abiding (Jan Karon)

* A Christmas Longing (Joni Eareckson-Tada)

* A Christmas Carol, Cricket on the Hearth, The Chimes, The Battle of Life, The Ghost’s Bargain, and The Haunted Man (Charles Dickens)

* Spirit of Christmas: Stories, Poems, Essays (G. K. Chesterton)

* The Christmas Room (Denny Hartford)

* God With Us (John MacArthur)

* Snow (Calvin Miller)

* A Treasury of Christmas Stories (Including The Other Wise Man) (Henry Van Dyke)

* The Gift of the Magi (O. Henry)

* The Freedom Train Christmas, The Winter in the Woods, and Christmas of the Talking Animals (Denny Hartford)

* Beasley’s Christmas Party (Booth Tarkington)

* Joy Born at Bethlehem: 19 Christmas Sermons (Charles Spurgeon)

4 Star Recommendations

* Letters from Father Christmas (J. R. R. Tolkien)

* Hercule Poirot’s Christmas (Agatha Christie)

* O Little Town (Don Reid)

* Christmas Every Day (William Dean Howells)

* Christmas at Thompson Hall (Anthony Trollope)

* The Drum Goes Dead (Bess Streeter Aldrich)

* The Quiet Little Woman, Tilly’s Christmas, Rosa’s Tale, The Abbott’s Ghost, A Merry Christmas, and A Country Christmas (Louisa May Alcott)

* Old Christmas (Washington Irving)

* Nutcracker (E.T.A. Hoffmann with illustrations by Maurice Sendak)

* The Bird’s Christmas Carol (Kate Douglas Wiggin)

* Dakota Christmas (Joseph Bottum)

* Christmas Sermons (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

* Good Tidings of Great Joy (Sarah Palin)

“Honorable Mention”

* Finding Noel (Richard Paul Evans)

* The Golden Ring: A Christmas Story (John Snyder)

* The Tailor of Gloucester (Beatrix Potter)

* Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce (Stanley Weintraub)

* The Christmas Train (David Baldacci)

* The Beggar Boy at Christ’s Christmas Tree (Fyodor Dostoevsky)

* The Little Match Girl (Hans Christian Anderson)

* Miracle on 34th Street (Valentine Davies)

* The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle (Arthur Conan Doyle)

* An English Murder (Cyril Hare)

* A Christmas Most Foul: A Collection of Holiday Mysteries (A variety of mystery’s Golden Age authors)

* The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas (Madeleine L’Engle)

* Big Book of Christmas Mysteries (A variety of well-known authors)

* A Christmas Inspiration (Lucy Maud Montgomery)

* The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (L. Frank Baum)

And two more items before I close. First of all, there are several books I love in which Christmas plays but a part. Still, because of the tender, memorable scenes of Christmas they depict therein, I’ll mention a few of my favorites: The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Little Women by Louis May Alcott, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis, The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and Persuasion by Jane Austen.

Finally, I’m hoping that there will be some new favorites in books I have recently ordered. Those include 3 Bible studies from Pastor Stephen Davey (From Babylon to Bethlehem, The Original Christmas Carol, and  The Chronicles of Christmas); Dasher: How a Brave Little Doe Changed Christmas Forever by Matt Tavares; Twelve Nights by Urs Faes; Afterward: A Ghost Story for Christmas by Edith Wharton; The Night Before Christmas by Nikolai Gogol; and Home for Christmas by Lloyd C. Douglas. I’ll let you know which ones of these (if any) make the grade. 

Merry Christmas reading!