Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: October 3rd, 2020
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Blurb from goodreads:
The perfect gift this Christmas season: a generous selection of some of the greatest festive stories of all time.
This is a collection of the most magical, moving, chilling and surprising Christmas stories from around the world, taking us from frozen Nordic woods to glittering Paris, a New York speakeasy to an English country house, bustling Lagos to midnight mass in Rio, and even outer space.
Here are classic tales from writers including Truman Capote, Shirley Jackson, Dylan Thomas, Saki and Chekhov, as well as little-known treasures such as Italo Calvino's wry sideways look at Christmas consumerism, Wolfdietrich Schnurre's story of festive ingenuity in Berlin, Selma Lagerlof's enchanted forest in Sweden, and Irène Nemerovsky's dark family portrait. Featuring santas, ghosts, trolls, unexpected guests, curmudgeons and miracles, here is Christmas as imagined by some of the greatest short story writers of all time.
My Thoughts:
I struggled with this one, which was disappointing as it sounded so promising. The collection is a mixed bag from around the world and different centuries. It certainly shows the varied literary approaches to Christmas and the different views of it.
Many of the older stories were depressing and not about Christmas so much as they were set at Christmas. There were some heartwarming stories and a few that really showed the miracle of Christmas. The stories are fairly short so when you want a quick read, this is a good book. The variety of stories is also good.
My problem was that most of the stories failed to engage me and it was a struggle to keep reading. I did like the stories by O. Henry, Hans Christian Andersen, Ray Bradbury and a few others. But overall, the collection was disappointing.
Oh I'm so sorry to hear this was disappointing. Based off the title and blurb I was ready to go all in but I think I'll skip it.
ReplyDeleteThe blurb and title had me excited too. It's such a mixed bag of genres and styles you would probably like some of the stories. I think a tighter theme than just Christmas would have helped.
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