The Very Best of Christmas Reading

4 Star Christmas Reading (And a Few Honorable Mentions)

With no time in this hectic (but happy) holiday season to give individual reviews, I am merely going to list my favorite Christmas reading in hopes that you will find it of value when you’re looking for literature that is high quality, wholesome, inspirational, and satisfyingly Christmassy. You’ll find in my list a wide range of genres including classic novels and short stories, theology, poetry, and history.  

So here to start are (in no particular order) my 4 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 Tailor of Gloucester" (Beatrix Potter)

* The Christmas Room (Denny Hartford)

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

* O Little Town (Don Reid)

* Christmas Every Day (William Dean Howells)

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

* Christmas at Thompson Hall (Anthony Trollope)

* 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" and Other Christmas Stories (O. Henry)

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

* "The Tailor of Gloucester" (Beatrix Potter)

* Beasley’s Christmas Party (Booth Tarkington)

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

* Old Christmas (Washington Irving)

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

* Dakota Christmas (Joseph Bottum)

* Christmas Sermons (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

* "A Christmas Inspiration" and Other Christmas Stories (Lucy Maud Montgomery)

* A Child’s Christmas in Wales (Dylan Thomas)

Honorable Mention

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

* Hercule Poirot’s Christmas (Agatha Christie)

* Christmas Stories (Selma Lagerlof)

* The Drum Goes Dead (Bess Streeter Aldrich)

* The Nutcracker & the Mouse King (E.T.A. Hoffmann)

* Good Tidings of Great Joy (Sarah Palin)

* Finding Noel (Richard Paul Evans)

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

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

* The Christmas Train (David Baldacci)

* "The Little Match Girl" (Hans Christian Anderson)

* Miracle on 34th Street (Valentine Davies)

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

* From Babylon to Bethlehem, The Original Christmas Carol, and The Chronicles of Christmas (Pastor Stephen Davey) 

* Home for Christmas (Lloyd C. Douglas)

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

* Gifts for a Joyous Christmas (Fr. Val J. Peter)

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

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

 And don’t forget, of course, the exquisite Christmas-themed poetry of G.K. Chesterton, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Dylan Thomas, Leslie Norris, Edgar Guest, T.S. Eliot, Christina Rossetti, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Norman Nicholson, Leslie Norris, and many more. 

Also, 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.

Merry Christmas reading!