by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian
Christmas is only a few days away. If you’re in the Christmas spirit and you
have time to read a book (You have time to read a book at Christmastime? What's your secret??), the library has a number of this year’s new holiday
books you could bring home to read during this coming week.
A new nonfiction book from Oxford University Press, Christmas in the Crosshairs: Two Thousand Years of Denouncing and Defending the World’s Most Celebrated Holiday, examines whether there is or ever has been a war on
Christmas. Historian Gerry Bowler
specializes in the intersection of religion and popular culture. He demonstrates that throughout history, beginning
with the holiday’s controversial invention during the Roman Empire, Christmas
has inspired debate and conflict. Involving
Puritans, Bolsheviks, Hitler, and Charles Dickens, this book can give you some
historical perspective on the issue.
You can’t tell from looking at the cover, but Mercedes
Lackey’s newest novel, A Scandal in Battersea, is a Christmas story. This is the twelfth book in Lackey’s Elemental
Masters series about Sherlock Holmes in an alternate, magical England. John and Mary Watson, both Elemental Masters,
are celebrating Christmas when they are asked to investigate the reappearance
of missing women, all of whom have been driven mad by whatever happened after
they disappeared.
The Usual Santas: A Collection of Soho Crime Christmas Capers is a collection of eighteen holiday stories. The crime authors include Mick Herron,
Timothy Hallinan, Peter Lovesey, and Lene Kaaberbol. Expect humor, murder, and international
locations from Sweden to North Korea.
For something gentler, Melody Carlson’s The Christmas Blessing may fit the bill. Carlson is a
bestselling author of Christian fiction, including many Christmas novels. In The Christmas Blessing, Amelia despairs
when the father of her baby is shot down in the South Pacific in 1944. Without a job or money, she must decide
whether to go to his high-class parents, who don’t know about her or the baby.
Debbie Macomber is another bestselling author known for her clean
and gentle novels, including popular Christmas books. Merry and Bright is her newest. Merry Knight takes care of her mother who has
multiple sclerosis and her brother who has Down syndrome, when she isn’t
working overtime. But her family is
concerned she doesn’t have a social life and they set up an online dating profile
for her. She hits it off online with
someone, only to be shocked when they meet in person.
Elin Hilderbrand’s Winter Trilogy has just gotten a fourth
book, Winter Solstice. (Does that make it a quartet?) The Quinn
family is gathered for the first time in a long time to celebrate the holidays
at the Winter Street Inn on Nantucket Island.
Many of their difficulties have been resolved, but their patriarch is
dying of cancer. Hilderbrand is good at
writing characters; those who enjoy bittersweet family stories are likely to enjoy
this farewell to the series.
Other new Christmas books for adults include How the Finch Stole Christmas by Donna Andrews, Fatal Frost by Karen MacInerney, Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb, Sugar Pine Trail by
RaeAnne Thayne, and The Amish Christmas Candle by Kelly Long, Jennifer
Beckstrand, and Lisa Jones Baker.
Pioneerland libraries will be open on Saturday, December 23, and closed
on Christmas Day, which is Monday, December 25.
We will be open normal hours the rest of that week. We will be closed on Monday, January 1, for
New Year’s Day. Happy holidays from the
Litchfield Library staff!
