Dear Santa Booklist by Tracy Darnton

I can’t believe we’re all here again, battening down the hatches for another ‘unusual’ Christmas. I should have been with family in the Netherlands right about now, enjoying the light festival, sipping advocaat and gorging myself on stroopwafel.

But instead, I'm at home, assuming we’re going to have a lot of time for reading over the next month…

Here’s my annual list to Santa of most wanted books to find in my stocking on Christmas morning:

Piranesi by Susannah Clarke - I hear nothing but love for it - so even though it's outside my usual genres, it's top of my wishlist. And who amongst us wouldn't kill for all those amazing cover quotes??? 

Or that beautiful cover?

Next up: Sathnam Sanghera'a Empireland. I've been holding out for the paperback but certainly Channel 4's Empire State of Mind has spurred me on to read it.  

Maybe since first chuckling over David Sedaris's Santaland Diaries on Mr B's Emporium's recommendation some years ago, I always associate him with Christmas. This time I'm hoping for A Carnival of Snackery for a collection of his recent observations. His writing makes me laugh out loud, just before it makes me gasp. Sedaris produces something universally interesting out of the everyday and can so deftly attach sorrow to humour to give it a real kick. Love the tight prose too. 

Ever since I did some research on my MA into the lack of translated fiction for children, I've been interested in comparative literature. So David Damrosch's Around the World in 80 Books will give me a much-needed guide and prompt to what I should be adding to my TBR list next year. 

I really enjoyed the Ashmolean's recent exhibition of 400 years of art and culture featuring Tokyo - from Hiroshige's woodblock prints to contemporary installations. It'd be great to pore over the accompanying book and explore a little further.

So that’s my list. A wistful one reminding me of trips to bookshops, lit fests and museums, and of a whole world out there I’d love to be travelling in. Fingers crossed.

Tracy Darnton is the author of YA thrillers The Rules and The Truth About Lies, and is in the YA anthology I’ll Be Home for Christmas. Please feel free to put them on your Christmas list.