The Penguin Book of Christmas Stories

From Hans Christian Andersen to Angela Carter

By: Jessica Harrison - editor

Narrated by: Shaniqua Okwok

Brought to you by Penguin.

Truman Capote makes whisky-soaked fruitcake in Alabama; Laurie Lee slides across a frozen pond in Gloucestershire; and Shirley Jackson is outwitted by a wily Santa Claus at the bank. Ghosts haunt the Christmases of Muriel Spark and Elizabeth Bowen, while Dostoyevsky, Daphne du Maurier and Italo Calvino take a cynical view of the season and Selma Lagerlof and Angela Carter celebrate its miracles. Ranging from Cork to Lagos to the Wild West and from Paris to San Paolo to outer space, this is Christmas as imagined by some of the greatest short-story writers of all time.

©2020 Jessica Harrison (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Unsure of the intended audience

The collection of stories is lovely to get you into the festive mood but the reader just wasn’t the right fit fit me personally. I found her delivery very child-like, or rather as though she was reading for children. Obviously that would work for some of the stories here but I don’t know how many children are interested in Truman Capote. Just a little odd to me but very subjective. Someone else I’m sure could find it very soothing or good for sleep.