A Very English Christmas: A Gay Amish Story

A fun re-telling of the Christmas story for young children, including regular invitations to make some noise! Some people think that Christmas was a "Silent Night". Far from it. It was filled with shouting, singing and screaming! It was as noisy as any of our Christmas celebrations. This fun and fresh retelling of the Christmas story comes with invitations to make some noise, so that children can join in as parents read to them. But it also shows children that at the heart of the Christmas story is something we should all be quiet and see: God's Son Jesus was born, so that we can be friends with God forever. A wonderful Christmas gift for children aged 2-4.

'If I could work my will,' said Scrooge indignantly, 'Every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas" on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.' This year go carol-singing in the Cotswolds with Laurie Lee or attend church with a grumpy Samuel Pepys. Make plum puddings for bemused French villagers with Elizabeth David; go present shopping with Virginia Woolf or eat far too much with Agatha Christie. Celebrate Christmas at Chatsworth, in the workhouse or marooned in the ice with Shackleton ... For forty-five years, the arrival of John Julius Norwich's latest Christmas Cracker became as essential a part of the Christmas experience as holly and mistletoe. In An English Christmas the late legendary popular historian gathered all the best writing about this strangest and most memorable time of year into one book and his brilliant eye for a story is evident on every page. Vividly evoking all the good things about the festive season, this unexpected anthology is just as entertaining about its darker aspects. Eight-year-old Princess Margaret's thank-you list jostles with moving letters home from the trenches. Sherlock Holmes solves his trickiest case. George Orwell writes about indigestion; Jane Austen about reluctant socialising and Thomas Hardy about the old folk belief that all animals kneel at midnight on 24 December. There are ghost stories, games and bizarre recipes. Diary-entries, recipes and letters sit alongside poems and short stories. An English Christmas could convert any Scrooge into an instant enthusiast.

A collection of short Christmas stories by some of Russia’s greatest nineteenth and twentieth century authors—several appearing in English for the first time. Running the gamut from sweet and reverent to twisted and uproarious, this collection offers a holiday feast of Russian fiction. Dostoevsky brings stories of poverty and tragedy; Tolstoy inspires with his fable-like tales; Chekhov’s unmatchable skills are on full display in his story of a female factory owner and her wretched workers; Klaudia Lukashevitch delights with a sweet and surprising tale of a childhood in White Russia; and Mikhail Zoshchenko recounts madcap anecdotes of Christmas trees and Christmas thieves in the Soviet Era—a time when it was illegal to celebrate the holiday in Russia. There is no shortage of imagination, wit, or vodka on display in this collection that proves, with its wonderful variety and remarkable human touch, that nobody does Christmas like the Russians.

Fuddles—the fat, pampered cat—weathers a wintry wonderland in this holiday story of merry misadventures! The way Fuddles, the overly indulged feline, sees the world, it’s better to receive than give! And what better gift for Fuddles than Christmas? One winter day, he wakes up to the smells and sights of the holiday: a juicy turkey dinner, sweet gingerbread, and a tree decorated with shiny, glittering toys—all for him! But when Fuddles tries to climb the tree, his family chases him away. He runs outside to escape, smack into cold and ice and snow! Will Fuddles ever make it back home in time to celebrate the merriest time of the year?

Richard Perceval Graves, who has written acclaimed biographies of A.E. Housman, Richard Hughes, the Powys Brothers and his uncle Robert Graves, has now turned the spotlight on his own life and times: primarily because he wishes to give a true account of what it was like being brought up in those far-off and very different days of the 1940s and 1950s. At the start of Richard’s story, we are living in the shadow of the Second World War. Rationing still exists. Traditional patriarchal families are the norm, with most women staying at home to look after their children. England is a largely white, largely Christian and highly deferential society. There is no Internet and no such thing as a smartphone; and children are reading many of the same books and being brought up in much the same way as their late-nineteenth-century predecessors, although the wireless now brings them Children’s Hour. The British Empire still exists: King George VI remains Emperor of India; but a Labour Government is coming to power and great social changes lie immediately ahead.

Modest, handsome and a fine poet, eccentric Englishman Frank Thompson made an unlikely soldier. Brother of E. P. Thompson and lover of Iris Murdoch, Frank was an intellectual idealist, a rare combination of brilliant mind and enormous heart. Of his wartime experiences, Frank wrote prodigiously. His letters, diaries and poetry still read fresh and intimate today - and it is from these that Peter J. Conradi brings vividly to life a brilliantly attractive and courageous personality. Aged just twenty-three, Frank was captured, tortured and executed in Bulgaria. A soldier of principle and integrity, he fought a poet's war; a very English hero from a very different era.