Five Best Christmas Books

By siliconindia   |   Saturday, 24 December 2011, 02:21 IST
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1. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

The ever published best Christmas book, of course is ‘A Christmas Carol’ by the great Victorian novelist Charles Dickens. Though it was not the first of this kind, it is the greatest among them.  It is not a replica of Christmas celebrations or Christianity. The cold-hearted, Ebenezer Scrooge plays the principal role in the novel. He is the one who always thought it would be better off without the poor in the world. ‘The Ghost of Christmas Past’ visits him and reveals how Scrooge started to hate poor and the Christmas fest. Then, ‘the Ghost of Christmas Present’ visualize to him how happy his nephew’s social circle and his family are. Later, ‘The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come’ visits him and shows the upshots of Scrooges’ activities on next Christmas. He weeps on the scene ‘there is no one to mourn on his death’, after all he re-embrace the life before awakening on the Christmas Morning.

While criticizing Dicken’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ poet Thomas Hood commented "If Christmas, with its ancient and hospitable customs, its social and charitable observances, were ever in danger of decay, this is the book that would give them a new lease. The very name of the author predisposes one to the kindlier feelings; and a peep at the Frontispiece sets the animal spirits capering".