I was lucky enough to be sent a copy for review of Stories for Christmas and the festive season which has been published by British Library. It was just what I needed to get me into the festive mood I thought. This anthology consists of seventeen short stories all by female authors, some by well-known authors but also by new to me writers. Some of the stories have been gathered from Christmas editions of women’s magazines of the past, and they’re set out in chronological order with the first one being set in the early part of preparations for Christmas and the second last one The Pantomime by Stella Margetson being set around New Year, that was one of my favourites. The very last story isn’t even a page and a half long.
The first is called The Turkey Season by Alice Munro. The setting is what would nowadays be called a turkey processing plant and I must admit that although this is a well written story it was a distinctly grim read with more than graphic descriptions of turkey gutting, not really what I was expecting, however looking past that it features good characters, particularly the women.
As ever with short story anthologies this book was a bit ‘curate’s eggish’ (good in parts) but on balance there were far more that I enjoyed than stories that for me just didn’t hit the spot.
There’s an interesting introduction by Simon Thomas. My thanks to British Library for sending me a copy of the book for review.
Katrina,
Thanks so much for including a photo of the list of short stories. I’m very interested in getting a hold of this collection.
Judith,
You should see if your library has a copy.
Is the Maeve Binchy story about a family which takes the mother for granted? I think I have read that.
Barbara Robinson wrote a very popular children’s book called The Best (Worst) Christmas Pageant Ever. I read it years ago while working for the publisher and coincidentally got it from the library on Friday for my niece who played Mary in her school’s pageant the previous week (It was quite cut-throat – Tess wanted that part and woe betide anyone who got in her way). I assume this is a chapter from the book. Not sure how much sense of humor my niece has but I thought she might enjoy it. I also gave her several books for Christmas.
Constance,
Yes that is the Maeve Binchy story, it has a sad ending.
Tess sounds like a scream, but I’m not sure if a good sense of humour goes with such a determined ambition to be Mary! I always give kids books, mainly because I’ve always loved getting them I suppose, I just hope that they do too.