A Literary Christmas: Great Contemporary Christmas Stories

Rating:
Summary: Another In A Great Series Of Literary Collections
Review: Lilly Golden and Larry Dark have put together a remarkable series of collections over the years. All of them are "Literary" collections of short stories. Then again, it's probably more accurate to describe them as "Literary" collections of *contemporary* short stories. Each year, we're faced with numerous warm and "feel good" books and CDs bearing a traditional Christmas theme. This one is more than refreshingly different. As a psychiatrist therapist, I'm all too familiar with what Christmas *really* means to a substantial number of people in our country. This book contains a cross-section of gritty and realistic stories that just happen to take place around that holiday. An early selection is Paul Auster's penetrating "Auggie Wren's Christmas Story," the core around which his later film "Smoke" was constructed. My favorite, though, is Mark Richard's "The Birds For Christmas," in which two hospitalized boys conspire to be able to watch Hitchcock's classic film way late on Christmas night. 27 stories in all, most by well-known masters of the form (O'Connor, Wolff, Shange, Dillard, Disch, Calvino, Beattie, Carver, Smiley, Boll, and Bradbury, to name a few). You'll probably have to find your copy used or remaindered, unfortunately. But they *are* still out there! Go get one!

Rating:
Summary: Another In A Great Series Of Literary Collections
Review: Lilly Golden and Larry Dark have put together a remarkable series of collections over the years. All of them are "Literary" collections of short stories. Then again, it's probably more accurate to describe them as "Literary" collections of *contemporary* short stories. Each year, we're faced with numerous warm and "feel good" books and CDs bearing a traditional Christmas theme. This one is more than refreshingly different. As a psychiatrist therapist, I'm all too familiar with what Christmas *really* means to a substantial number of people in our country. This book contains a cross-section of gritty and realistic stories that just happen to take place around that holiday. An early selection is Paul Auster's penetrating "Auggie Wren's Christmas Story," the core around which his later film "Smoke" was constructed. My favorite, though, is Mark Richard's "The Birds For Christmas," in which two hospitalized boys conspire to be able to watch Hitchcock's classic film way late on Christmas night. 27 stories in all, most by well-known masters of the form (O'Connor, Wolff, Shange, Dillard, Disch, Calvino, Beattie, Carver, Smiley, Boll, and Bradbury, to name a few). You'll probably have to find your copy used or remaindered, unfortunately. But they *are* still out there! Go get one!