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     Volume 4 Issue 26 | December 24, 2004 |


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Books


Books on Christmas

Sanyat Sattar

A Redbird Christmas
Fannie Flag
Random House; November 2004

Oswald Campbell doesn't have much to live for, except to cash his paltry pension check, drop in on the occasional AA meeting, and visit the VA hospital. Dreading another winter in Chicago, he takes in stride the news that his emphysema will probably take his life before Christmas. Having no family except an ex-wife, who has since moved on, Oswald follows his doctor's advice and spends his final months in a more comfortable climate. By chance, he ends up in Lost River, Alabama, a sleepy town with so many single, older women that Frances Cleverdon, a widow, hopes that Oswald will turn out to be someone's knight in shining armor. Not quite the Romeo they had hoped for, Oswald nonetheless is taken under folks' wings. Without noticing how it happens, Oswald comes to love Lost River, visiting the town store and the feisty redbird that lives there, waiting out at the dock for the river-faring postman to bring the mail, or accepting myriad dinner invitations from the town's women. Flagg based Lost River on her own hometown, and though such places may actually exist, there nevertheless is an allegorical feel to this little tale of hope, friendship, and common decency. Intended as a Christmas story, it would be readable year-round.


Merry Christmas Song Books
Readers Digest
Readers Digest Assn; September 2003

The new edition of Merry Christmas Songbook will help you and your family share the songs and the warmth of this wondrous time of year. This volume presents 108 favorite holiday songs and instrumentals, is spiral bound to enable the pages to lie flat, and includes a companion lyric book.

 


Christmas in the South
Charlene R. McCord & Judy H. Tucker (editors)
Algonquin Books; October 2004

Last year's bestselling anthology of outstanding stories and original watercolors A Very Southern Christmas was an instant hit. This year Christmas in the South reminds us of the multitude of emotions that arise as December approaches and the shopping days decrease, as anticipations and hopes rise about reunions, renewed vows, charity, and the perfect present. This year's anthology includes some of the South's finest contemporary fiction writers: Doris Betts, Larry Brown, Ellen Douglas, Michael Knight, Clyde Edgerton, Gail Godwin, Jill McCorkle, Carolyn Haines, Silas House, and Donald Harington. Accompanied by Wyatt Waters's vibrant watercolors commissioned specifically for this collection, this beautiful volume, like its predecessor, promises to be a treasured keepsake.

 

(sanyatsattar@hotmail.com)

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