Authors' Christmas Wishlists

The final christmas wishlist is from Janice Lee, author of The Piano Teacher. Ambitious, exotic, and a classic book club read, The Piano Teacher is a combination of Tenko meets The Remains of the Day. Sometimes the end of a love affair is only the beginning…

To purchase a copy of the book, or to read ‘The Creative Gift’ – an article about The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee, click here.

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore,

Personal Days by Ed Park,

Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon

We hope you’ve enjoyed this feature, and if any of the recommendations inspired your christmas purchasing, we’d love to hear from you!

Click here to read other author’s wishlists.

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The final of today’s Christmas Wishlists and the penultimate in the series is from Ariane Sherine, editor of The Friday Project’s There’s Probably No God: The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas: 42 atheist celebrities, comedians, scientists and writers give their funny and serious tips for enjoying the Christmas season.

Showing absolutely no nepotism whatsoever, three of the books on Ariane’s list are written by co-contributors to the Atheist’s Guide. (I wouldn’t let that put you off though – they are on my wishlist too.)

Charlie Brooker – The Hell of it All

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The second of our Friday Project authors to offer up their Christmas wishlist today is the excellent Caroline Smailes. Caroline is the author of Black Boxes, which was published by The Friday Project earlier this year. Affecting and engrossing, this is a gripping novel of family breakdown – Julie Myerson meets Ian McEwan. Get yourself a copy here, or click here to read about a brilliant little widget created to publicize it.

You can also read Caroline’s great blog here .

Top of my Christmas wish list: Jeanette Winterson’s new book The Battle of the Sun. I’ve read everything she’s written, so I guess this is an obvious choice.

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We asked our authors for books they’d like to give – or get – this Christmas. Continuing the series, today we are featuring the gifting choices/ wishes of not one, not two, but three of our very special authors.

Paula Byrne

Paula Byrne was born in Birkenhead and has a PhD from the University of Liverpool. Her second book, Perdita, was a Richard and Judy bookclub pick. Her most recent book, Mad World, was published last year to critical acclaim.

On my Christmas list are the following books:

- The new biography of the Queen Mother by William Shawcross (especially after hearing all the hullaballoo on Woman’s Hour)
- Selina Hasting’s The Secret Life of Somerset Maugham
- Behind Closed Doors: at Home in Georgian England by Amanda Vickery

- The Twilight saga because my niece has told me to read it (and so did India Knight in last week’s Sunday Times and I always do what India recommends)

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We asked some of our brilliant authors for books they’d like to give- or get – for Christmas. This time it’s the turn of Michael Burleigh, brilliant author of Moral Combat: A History of World War II, due to be published by HarperPress in 2010. Pre-order your copy here.

Last Christmas friends gave us Caroline Clifton-Mogg’s Secret Gardens of London (Thames and Hudson). I’ve leafed through it several times this year, in the hope that it might help transform our very small back yard.

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We asked some of our brilliant authors for books they’d like to give- or get – for Christmas. The next installment of our Christmas wishlist series is from Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan.

I’d give Jeremy Mynott’s beautifully compendious Birdscapes: Birds in Our Imagination and Experience (Princeton University Press) to my friend Dennis Minsky, naturalist extraordinaire on Cape Cod, because I’d like him to stop correcting my Anglo-centric spelling of bird names.

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Between now and Christmas, we’ve asked some of our brilliant authors to provide lists of books they’d like as christmas gifts – either to give or receive. To kick of this series we have esteemed military historian Richard Holmes, with a special selection of Remembrance Day themed books.

We also asked Richard to provide a little background on why he chose the books he did.

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