Somehow we find ourselves at the last Holiday Book Bite of Blogmas 2024! With Christmas only a week away now, everything is happening very quickly. (I don’t know about you, but work only gets busier and busier at this time of year, adding to the stress.) Still, I try to set aside at least a few minutes every day to read and give myself a break. And as such, I tend to gravitate towards books that have shorter chapters/pieces that I can read in a few moments. I found this book at a charity book sale last year and it is festively perfect for me. For our last Holiday Book Bite: Christmas at The New Yorker!
Christmas at The New Yorker: Stories, Poems, Humor, and Art, The New Yorker
From the pages of America’s most influential magazine come eight decades of holiday cheer-plus the occasional comical coal in the stocking—in one incomparable collection. Sublime and ridiculous, sentimental and searing, Christmas at “The New Yorker” is a gift of great writing and drawing by literary legends and laugh-out-loud cartoonists.
Here are seasonal stories, poems, memoirs, and more, including such classics as John Cheever’s 1949 story “Christmas Is a Sad Season for the Poor,” about an elevator operator in a Park Avenue apartment building who experiences the fickle power of charity; John Updike’s “The Carol Sing,” in which a group of small-town carolers remember an exceptionally enthusiastic fellow singer (“How he would jubilate, how he would God-rest those merry gentlemen, how he would boom out when the male voices became King Wenceslas”); and Richard Ford’s acerbic and elegiac 1998 story “Crèegrave;che,” in which an unmarried Hollywood lawyer spends an unsettling holiday with her sister’s estranged husband and kids.
Here, too, are S. J. Perelman’s 1936 “Waiting for Santy,” a playlet in the style of Clifford Odets labor drama (the setting: “The sweatshop of Santa Claus, North Pole”), and Vladimir Nabokov’s heartbreaking 1975 story “Christ-mas,” in which a father grieving for his lost son in a world “ghastly with sadness” sees a tiny miracle on Christmas Eve.
And it wouldn’t be Christmas-or The New Yorker—without dozens of covers and cartoons by Addams, Arno, Chast, and others, or the mischievous verse of Roger Angell, Calvin Trillin, and Ogden Nash (“Do you know Mrs. Millard Fillmore Revere?/On her calendar, Christmas comes three hundred and sixty-five times a year”).
Why You Should Read This…
This collection’s pieces range from one to thirty pages and really are perfect for the days when you only have a few moments to read. They were written anywhere from the 1920s to the early 2000s- you get quite a range which makes it quite interesting. (It is festive but not expected, you don’t end up going on autopilot.)
There are several sections on different themes, including Santa, Christmas carols, Christmas trees, and the holiday spirit. I loved that some are funny and light, others are melancholic, some are curious, and a few are just bizarre. However, I will say, as it is from The New Yorker, it is a specific sense of humour/approach. (It works for me, but I get it isn’t for everyone.)
One of the true highlights for me were the drawings and the different Christmas covers of the magazine included. I’ve spent a few nights just looking through and enjoying them when I’ve been exceptionally tired and it is a treat. (I wish that political and social commentary cartoons would make a comeback!)
Is Christmas at The New Yorker on your to-read list?
Cheers,
The Historian
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