Christmas book club 2020

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 December was approaching, and COVID situation seemed to have eased a bit, with lesser number of patient reported in daily news. However, situation was far from over. There was no vaccine available and we had to live under pressure to keep away from social gathering.

As holiday season was approaching, I thought about organizing an event to celebrate Christmas and end of year more than usual. We all knew that we have to skip parties with friends and family for December. Why not organize an online event?

I planned Christmas reading event, starting from Advent until Epiphany. The rest was quite quick. I picked up a Christmassy photograph, set schedule, jotted my idea on a social media for book lovers in Japan, and invited my SNS friends to the book club.

I was glad to know that there were people who interested in the idea. Some of them were quite excited to read books on Christmas, especially those who have little children that they can read Christmas books with their kids.

During our time from November to January, we came across with many books on Christmas. One of the notable book which most of us liked were “The Flying Classroom“ by Erich Kastner. It is about a Christmas season at a boarding school, portraying little boys and their teacher’s relationship – the boy’s fight with boys from other school, reunion of a teacher and his old friends, and Christmas day for a boy and his parents. I am not going into too much detail here, but it was a good read.

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Some of the books I picked up for this event were as follows.

The Tailor of Gloucester by Beatrix Potter

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The Adventure of Christmas Pudding by Agatha Christie

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Different Seasons by Stephen King

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The Flying Classroom by Erich Kastner


Do the Wassail by Conrad Bladey

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X’mas Stories by Asai Ryo et al

I wish I could have read more, but because of restriction at my local library during COVID-19, it was difficult to search for more books.

Maye next time. But the event was to keep our minds away from COVID-19. I am not sure if I would organize another event for 2021. I hope we will be living under better situation, with more chance to celebrate the holiday season with family and friends, and put books aside for a while.

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