Give yourself a special present this Christmas. You've bought gifts for family and friends, so now it's time to treat yourself. Something festive and wintry would be nice. Snow might not be falling where you are, Jack Frost will probably not be turning everything shiny and white, but there is a place you can travel to where everything Christmassy will be happening just as it should. The daddy of all Christmas stories is Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. You might have seen the new movie version of this classic tale and there have been more than 20 film versions, so perhaps now is the time to go back to the original and forget what Hollywood has done to the story. If you don't feel up to the task of reading Dickens' sometimes difficult prose, there are also some good abridged versions of the book. If you're feeling really brave and think a good, gory scare is called for, try I am Scrooge: A Zombie Story for Christmas Adam Roberts' reworking of A Christmas Carol into a comic horror tale. Great fun from start to finish, this tongue-in-cheek gore-fest is just the thing to take the sweetness out of Christmas. We all like getting gifts at Christmas, but 13-year-old Tiffany Aching is getting a bit worried about the presents she is receiving. Tiffany has a problem, the Wintersmith has fallen in love with her and he's behaving like a teenage boy with his first crush by showering her with icebergs, iced roses and avalanches. He even turns himself into a snowman so that he can declare his love for Tiffany. Terry Pratchett's freezing fantasy Wintersmith is just the book to enjoy if you want your Christmas to be a white one. It cannot be Christmas without a journey on board The Polar Express. Chris van Allsburg's award-winning picture book tells how a small boy climbs on board a mysterious train that has stopped outside his home on Christmas Eve. The train is the Polar Express and it's on its way to the North Pole where Father Christmas and his elves are getting ready to give the first gift of Christmas. The Polar Express is a gripping atmospheric story with a dream- like quality that is just right for Christmas. The Icemark is definitely a place that should be on a list of places to visit at Christmas. This far-off realm is a land of never-melting ice and freezing snows. Fourteen-year-old Princess Thirrin has just become Queen of the Icemark and it is up to her to save her country from enemy invasion. The sub-zero landscape is an important character in The Cry of the Icemark and Hill, a brilliant graphic writer, conjures up chills of all sorts in this debut novel. The Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien is not a writer with whom you associate Christmas, but his Letters from Father Christmas is a little-known festive delight. Every year, an envelope from the North Pole would arrive for Tolkien's children. Inside was a hand-written letter and a beautiful drawing. It was a letter from Father Christmas! Over the years, the letters told magical stories of reindeer, polar bears and presents. Now published in book form, Tolkien's Letters is essential Christmas reading. What would Christmas be without a good ghost story? Silent Night is a spooky collection of 10 ghost stories that will put a cool, festive chill into Christmas. Get yourself a box of mince pies, curl up and enjoy!
