Anthologies

Ice is a riveting collection of writing about polar exploration -- stories of self-sacrifice, beauty, and heroism by eminent adventurers who have endured 50-below-zero temperatures, gale winds, and starvation to explore the farthest reaches of the globe. Robert Scott's journals recount his long march to and from the South Pole, which ends with the death of all his men and Scott himself. Ernest Shackleton offers an account of his heroic efforts to save his men when their ship was crushed by ice thousands of miles from civilization. Richard Byrd writes of his own near-breakdown under the stress of spending a winter alone at the South Pole.

Oh the weather outside is frightful, so draw up a chair to the fire (an electric heater will do), get the chestnuts roasting, and conjure some festive feeling with the help of this seasonal selection. On Christmas Eve it is traditional to scare yourself witless with ghost stories - classics from Edith Wharton and M.R. James should get you started. Diary entries both real and imagined reveal innocent Christmases past, while tales from P.G. Wodehouse and Damon Runyon show the singular workings of the yuletide spirit. Go carolling with Laurie Lee and the animals of The Wind in the Willows, meet some unruly relations courtesy of Stella Gibbons and Nancy Mitford, feast on Christmas geese and puddings zestfully imagined by Dickens and Edith Nesbit, while O. Henry and John Cheever ruminate on the nature of gift-giving. As the fire is slowly dying, bittersweet and comical Christmas memories from Truman Capote and Dylan Thomas draw your seasonal reading to a close.