The Thammasat University Library fiction collection includes a number of stories set in the yearend holiday season.
The TU Library collection offers substantial variety for every mood.
The library owns different editions of A Christmas Carol, a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London in 1843.
A Christmas Carol tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come.
After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.
Another longtime favorite is The Gift of the Magi, a short story by the American writer O. Henry, first published in 1905.
The story tells of a young husband and wife and how they deal with the challenge of buying secret Christmas gifts for each other with very little money.
As a sentimental story with a moral lesson about gift-giving, it has been popular for adaptation, especially for presentation at Christmas time.
Some readers may delight in Miracle on 34th Street (1947) a novella by Valentine Davies, based on the story he wrote for the 1947 film with the same name, which earned him an Academy Award for Best Story.
After having written the story for the film, Valentine Davies did a novelization of it, which was published as a 120-page novella in conjunction with the film release.
The inspiration for the story, about a woman, her daughter and a man who believes he is the real Santa Claus, came when Valentine Davies was standing in line at a big department store during the Christmas season.
Davies’ story has since been the basis of a number of other productions, and has become a favorite Christmas play for a number of American theatrical companies.
Another traditional text is A Christmas Memory, a short story by the American author Truman Capote. The narrative focuses on rural life, friendship, and the importance of giving during the Christmas season.
One longstanding tradition in England at Christmastime is to read detective fiction.
There is a feeling of reassurance that in classic detective stories, the guilty offenders are always caught and punished for their crimes.
The holiday season is full of disruptions, often with stressful travel and financial strain.
A crime story can be a welcome distraction and relaxation.
In Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie, a family gathering is interrupted by the death of one of its members on Christmas Eve.
The novel features a parent/victim who was a tyrant, which leads directly to his murder.
The Guardian newspaper reviewed the original book, praising the detective Poirot, who
by careful and acute reasoning is able to show that a convincing case can be made out against all the members of the family till the baffled reader is ready to believe them all guilty in turn and till Poirot in one of his famous confrontation scenes indicates who is, in fact, the culprit. In this kind of detective novel, depending almost entirely for its interest on accuracy of logical deduction from recorded fact and yet with the drama played out by recognisable human beings, Mrs Christie remains supreme. One may grumble…that she depends a little too much upon coincidence and manufactured effect…but how small are such blemishes compared with the brilliance of the whole conception!
Agatha Christie was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.
Christie has been called the “Queen of Crime”.
The Guinness Book of World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, as over two billion copies of her novels have been sold so far.
A more recent mystery title in the TU Library collection is The Mistletoe Murder: And Other Stories by P. D. James.
Phyllis Dorothy James was an English novelist.
Her fame derived from her series of detective novels featuring the police commander and poet, Adam Dalgliesh.
She once informed an interviewer about her distinguished predecessor:
As I have been reading crime novels – mostly detective stories – for 80 years, I can spot most of the tricks – particularly those of Agatha Christie. I am also quite likely to hit upon the killer in more modern novels. But spotting the murderer is probably less important in modern detective stories. The pure puzzle – as with Agatha Christie – although ingenious, is probably less important today than the examination of motive, the interest of setting and distinction of writing. The detective novel has moved closer to mainline fiction.
Her advice to beginning writers:
Increase your word power. Increase your vocabulary. Words are our raw materials. Practise writing. Read widely, particularly of the best writing. Learn to try and understand and sympathise with other people. Go through life always open to experience. Nothing that happens to a writer, good or ill, is ever lost.
Another British collection, The Usual Santas: a collection of Soho Crime Christmas capers offers a variety of themes, as the publisher’s description notes:
Eighteen delightful holiday short stories by some of your favorite Soho Crime authors!
This captivating collection—which features bestselling, and award-winning authors—contains laughs aplenty, the most hardboiled of holiday noir, and heartwarming reminders of the spirit of the season.
Nine mall Santas must find the imposter among them. An elderly lady seeks peace from her murderously loud neighbors at Christmastime. A young woman receives a mysterious invitation to Christmas dinner with a stranger. Niccolò Machiavelli sets out to save an Italian city. Sherlock Holmes’s one-time nemesis Irene Adler finds herself in an unexpected tangle in Paris while on a routine espionage assignment. Jane Austen searches for the Dowager Duchess of Wilborough’s stolen diamonds. And other adventures that will whisk readers away to Christmases around the globe, from a Korean War POW camp to a Copenhagen refugee squat to the streets of Thailand.
A preface to the book by one of its contributors, author Peter Lovesey, observes that in the United Kingdom, crime is unfortunately part of the holiday season, which may be why this time has inspired more short stories than any other theme:
Crime statistics spike at this time of the year. The seasonal shopping spree provides rich pickings for thieves and fraudsters. Well stocked stores become tempting targets for stick-up men and shoplifters . . . Family feuds are revived by stressed-out, not-so-merry merrymakers . . . All of this is rich material for crime writers…One of the joys of the festive season is the opportunity to give and receive surprises [and in this anthology] there are shocks in plenty.
Readers in the mood for another traditional thriller may appreciate Deck the Halls by the Americans Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark, about a family member being held hostage before Christmas.
(all images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)