Serial email ebooks and Christmas rereads

I subscribed to Dracula Daily due to peer pressure from tumblr and Twitter, and it was fun to slowly read the book via emails, which sent you the diary entries and letters that make up the book on the day they were "written". It was a fun and unique way to read the book, which I'd read ages before, and I liked seeing the memes and social media posts about it as we all read the book together and chatted about what our good friend Jonathan Harker had written. I don't think I'll do Dracula Daily again, but thanks to their recommendations I've subscribed to other ebooks-via-email subscriptions. Truly this is the best way to use Substack. 3.5 stars. Trigger warnings: blood (including consumption of), gore, body horror, off-page child murder, child endangerment, vampires kidnapping/feeding on children and adults, death, wolves/large dogs, various forms of horror

 

One of DD's recommendations was for Dickens December, which split up A Christmas Carol into equal-ish segments that were emailed out December 1 to 26. I also enjoyed reading ACC this way; I find the short email every day prompts more reflection than just reading the book in one gulp, which is what I usually do. I like to reread A Christmas Carol for Christmas anyway, and this was a fun way to do it. 4 stars. Trigger warnings: ghosts, supernatural horror, poverty, classism, death, homelessness mentions, prison mentions, a character flirts in a way that would be considered sexual harassment today

 

I reread Christmas with Anne, a compilation of L.M. Montgomery's holiday stories and the Christmas chapters from two Anne of Green Gables books. I reread it every year, and find the stories to be nice and old-fashioned in a comforting way. The non-Anne stories fall into one of three camps: an estranged family is reconciled during the holidays, stuck-up people learn humility due to sharing merry-making with others, or a poor family's children are gifted Christmas in a way they could not have imagined. Others may find the stories repetitive, but I don't mind it, having been inoculated due to repeated readings of the Christmas in My Heart books, which has even more repetitive stories despite being a 40-something book series. I believe this is now out of print, but you may be able to buy an inferior cover version that isn't as nice. 4 out of 5 stars, permanent collection. Trigger warnings: poverty, classism, xenophobia, lookism, fatphobia, sexism, controlling parental figure, death, loss, grief, past child abuse and neglect mentions, 1 brief infertility mention, loneliness, estranged families

 

Another Christmas reread was Jan Brett's picture book The Twelve Days of Christmas, which was a gift from my kindergarten teacher when I was five. It's beautifully, sumptuously illustrated, with lots of lovely details and interpretations of each of the true love's gifts. Truly a picture book to lose yourself in. 5 stars, permanent collection.

picture courtesy of Abebooks