- Hardcover: 480 pages
- Publisher: Faber and Faber (4 Dec 1996)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 057117440X
- ISBN-13: 978-0571174409
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.8 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 367,862 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
A Christmas Poem
At Christmas little children sing and merry bells jingle,--Wendy Cope
The cold winter air makes our hands and faces tingle
And happy families go to church and cheerily they mingle
And the whole business is unbelievably dreadful, if you're single.
Simon Rae's brilliant The Faber Book of Christmas is a bold collection of musings on Christmas past, present and future and scopes the centuries for poems, stories, essays and anecdotes from the pens of the mighty, logging all the emotions that enforced merriment can bring on the hardworking soul. From musings on the traditional and sneaky peaks into the mindsets of those for whom Christmas is something of a chore, Rae pulls the likes of Wendy Cope and John Milton together with Auden and Dickens while scanning all things Jingle Bells across the world.
Rae maintains a reasonable balance between loving and loathing and presents a thoroughly subversive anthology which manages to cover just about every possible angle, leaving the reader in little doubt that whatever their own personal feelings about the onset of the tinsel and toyshop season, there is someone somewhere living the dream--or the nightmare--with them.
Intriguing, challenging and irreverent to the last, The Faber Book of Christmas, is a must-have for cynics seeking a source of razor-sharp quotations to cover all eventualities at the sherry-and-mince-pie reception but most of all its a spirited dip-into read that will long outlive the Christmas tree and Playstations. --Susan Harrison --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Like it or loathe it, the world's greatest religious festival is far more than the traditional package (largely invented by the Victorians) of Christmas trees, cards, decorations and stockings hung out for Santa Claus. It has a long history, with roots in a variety of pagan cultures, and legends from around the world. These, with its Christian bedrock in the gospel accounts of the Nativity, are well represented in this anthology, along with accounts of Christmas spent in climatic extremes and under a wide range of circumstances. From commercial kitsch in Japan and cricketing Christmases in Australia to cannibalism on the nineteenth-century American emigrant trail and forced carol singing in a German concentration camp, Simon Rae's book is full of intriguing and challenging surprises.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have read many books on christmas - short stories, cookery, christmas history and poems. This book provides a wonderful cornucopia of christmas gems. It contains a good mix of everything and is an an honest 'tip of the hat' to the season. It is not sugar coated nor dour but rather pulls together christmas memories, poems, stories, recipes from bygone years thru to now and delivers an intelligent, engaging and enjoyable mix of christmas spirit.
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