Letters From Father Christmas

Tolkien, J.R.R. Letters From Father Christmas. New York: Houghton Mifflin 1976. Print.

First Sentences:

Christmas House, North Pole

22nd December 1920

 

Dear John,

 

I heard you ask daddy what I was like and where I lived. I have drawn me and my house for you...I am just off now for Oxford with my bundle of toys -- some for you. Hope I shall arrive in time; the snow is very thick at the North Pole tonight. Your loving Father Christmas 

Description:

There is no book more delightful in so many ways than J.R.R. Tolkein's Letters from Father Christmas. These are hand-written letters, complete with water-color illustrations, from Santa (J.R.R. Tolkein) to Tolkein's three children, starting when John, the eldest, was three years old in 1920. Letters from Father Christmas compiles twenty years of these simple, heartfelt notes about Santa and his beautiful, often disaster-prone life in the North Pole.

 

 

Here we can read about the latest antics of Santa's mischievious Chief Assistant, the North Polar Bear, as well as descriptions of various other characters like the Red Gnome, Snow-elves, Cave Bears, and many more. Of course, Santa writes about his own life and the unexpected challenges he faced over the past year, such as when the North Polar Bear got into Santa's basement and accidently set off all the fireworks used for the Northern Lights. Or when the North Polar Bear climbed the North Pole, broke it, and fell through Santa roof, ruining many children's presents.

These letters were lovingly selected and presented by Baille Tolkein, the wife of Tolkein's third son, Christopher. She includes samples of the envelopes, stamps, and marginalia comments from the Polar Bear on Santa's original notes. 

The quality and colors of the water color pictures and letters are exquisite, while the impish writing style of Santa himself makes this small book a perfect companion for a reading session with any youngster, or just to savor by yourself alone by the fire. Tolkein truly makes the magic of Santa and his polar world come to life. 

 

You won't be sorry you picked up this imaginative, artistic collection from the mind of J.R.R. Tolkein. Of course, it earns my Highest Recommendation.

 

 

 Happy reading. 

 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Rylant, Cynthis. Henry and Mudge and a Very Merry Christmas.   

If you are looking for a book to read to and look at wonderful illustrations with very young children, or let them read alone when a bit older, I highly recommend the "Henry and Mudge" books. This series focuses on the adventures of a ordinary young boy and his huge, drooling, lazy afraid-of-thunder dog, whimsically written and illustrated. The stories are highly familiar scenarios to most kids, from tree houses to visiting relatives and building forts in the snow. Delightful for adults and children alike, a rare quality.

 

Meet Me at the Museum

Youngson, Anne. Meet Me at the Museum. New York: Flatiron 2018. Print

First Sentences:

Dear young girls,

Home again from the deserts and oases of the Sheikdoms I find your enthusiastic letters on my desk. They have aroused in me the wish to tell you and many others who take an interest in our ancestors about these strange discoveries in Danis bogs.  

Description:

Sometimes you come across a book that really reaches you, one that you can't wait to read the next page, the next paragraph, the next sentence. You begrudge any task that stands between you and reading the book, regret when sleep overtakes you during nighttime reading, and can't wait to recommend it to anyone who loves good writing, character, and a sense that there is something really good in the world.

Such a book, for me, is Anne Youngson's Meet Me at the Museum. The plot, probably the least important part, starts with a gentle Thank You note from Tina Hopgood, a sixtiesh farmer's wife to the author of a study on the Tollund Man. (The Tollund Man is an actual figure who lived around 300 BC and whose body, skin, clothes, and rope burn around his neck were found perfectly preserved in the peat bogs of Silkeborg, Denmark. Tina's letter is answered by the new curator of the Tollund Museum, Anders Larsen, and a correspondence between the two begins.

As might be expected, over the coming weeks the letters wander away from the Tollund Man into areas of their vastly different lifestyles of his cloistered academic study and her outdoor farm life. They share thoughts about the lives they chose (or were chosen for them)  as well as concerns about their families, dreams, sadness, and joys.

Throughout this epistolary novel of letters, there is an overwhelming sense of two ordinary yet sensitive people reaching out to another thoughtful person they can finally open up to. A genuine respect for each other and communication emerges in their beautifully, honestly-written notes that gently, inexorably pull you in deeper and deeper. I simply could not resist reading what the next subject/thought/words would be from one paragraph to the next.

That's all you need to know to encourage you to go out and read this touching book. There's lots more that goes on and personal revelations that are vital to understanding these two lovely people, but I won't spoil anything. I loved it, give it the highest recommendation, and hope you will read and be caught up it these lives and words as I was.

 [For further reading, check out the Tollund Museum website]

Happy reading. 
    

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Hanff, Helene. 84 Charing Cross Road.   

A correspondence blossoms between a woman in New York City seeking specific books to purchase and a rare book dealer in London. They discuss books, editions, quality of writing, authors, and many other book-related topics as their relationship grows. Lovely, warm writing.

The Steady Running of the Hour

Go, Justin. The Steady Running of the Hour. New York: Simon & Schuster. 2014. Print

First Sentences:

The letter came by courier last week.

I knew when I touched the envelope that it was fine stationery. I knew from the paper, the porous surface of pure cotton rag; the watermark that shone though as I held it to the light. The letter is in my bag in the overhead compartment, but I imagine the cream fibers, the feel of the engraved letterhead.

Description:

Ashley Walsingham was a mountain climber killed in an attempt to scale Mt. Everest in 1924. Before he departed for the climb he re-wrote his will to leave his fortune to Imogen Soames-Andersson, a woman he had met for one brief week but had not seen for seven years. But after his death she cannot be found to give her with the vast bequeath. 

Now, after 80 years, the estate is still unclaimed and the trust is to be distributed to other charities. Tristan Campbell receives a letter from the Walsingham Trust lawyers. They have a vague idea that Tristan might be the last remaining heir to the estate in trust from 1924. Tristan has only a few weeks to prove his direct link to Walsingham to claim the inheritance. Thus begins to search into the lives of Ashley and Imogen, their correspondence, Walsingham's life as a World War I combatant and mountain climber, and Imogen's life after his death.

Justin Go proves himself an able story-teller and romanticist in his debut novel The Steady Running of the Hour. This book has something for everyone: a passionate romance between two young lovers; a mystery that follows tenuous links to murky speculations; an epistolary correspondence between star-crossed lovers; realistic descriptions of the soldiers and conditions of World War I; and bone-chilling details about the assent on Mt. Everest.

It is a twisting tale combining Tristan's search for any information about these two lovers. Starting with only a few of their letters, he travels to their English homes, the battlefields of France, and an isolated village in Iceland, looking for clues that might answer critical questions: Could they somehow be his great-great grandparents? How did they meet? What happened when Ashley went away to war? What didn't Imogen ever claim the estate? Is their romance truly love or just the longing of youth?

Even love can sometimes be a mistake, and perhaps this vanished love of Ashley and Imogen's had been a wasted one ... Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between love and longing, but they are not at all the same thing, and while one is worth very much, the other is always wasted.

Chapters alternate between Tristan's present day search and the actions of Ashley and Imogen 80 years earlier. Readers are privy to both the desperate research and travels of Tristan as well as the star-crossed relationship of Ashley and Imogen, their conversations, correspondence, and lives together and apart. All actions, conversations, and situations are carefully, wonderfully detailed until you understand and care deeply about each of these characters. And wonder what will be the conclusions to each of their lives.

Along the way, Tristan gradually becomes less interested in his stake in the inheritance and is more driven to understand these two lovers. And as he searches, his life and decisions begin to take on a similarity to those of Ashley in pursuit of goals and relationships with women.

I don't feel sorry for them. However badly things went for Ashley, I bet you anything he wouldn't have traded his life for mine. They knew what they cared about, both of them. Even if they lost it, at least they knew.

Will Tristan find the answers in the time remaining? Will the information confirm his lineage to Ashley and Imogen and the fortune that awaits him as the heir? The book keeps you guessing until the final pages, and even then it produces several unexpected surprises. One has to love a story that is unpredictable to the very end, so completely engrossing you in the story and characters that you arrive breathless at the end, take a minute to digest the outcome, then want to start reading it all over again.

A wonderfully-written, beautiful love story and challenging mystery full of interesting characters, story twists, and, of course, adventure and passion. Highly recommended.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Brockmole, Jessica. Letters from Skye: A Novel

Correspondence between a young college man who enters World War I and a quiet poet living on the Isle of Skye. Beautifully written, passionate, and tragic at once. (previously reviewed here)

Shreve, Anita. Stella Bain

A woman awakes in a World War I hospital in France, with no memory of her name, her past, or what she is doing in the battlefield. As she searches for her identity, she meets one man who might change her life. (previously reviewed here)

Letters from Skye

Brockmole, Jessica. Letters from Skye. New York: Ballantine. 2013. Print

First Sentences:

Urbana, Illinois, U.S.A
March 5, 1912

Dear Madam,

I hope you won't think me forward, but I wanted to write to express my admiration for your book, From an Eagle's Aerie. I'll admit, I'm not usually a guy for poetry. More often, I can be found with a dog-eared copy of Huck Finn or something else involving mortal peril and escape. But something in your poems touched me more than anything has in years.

Description:

Thus starts the epistolary relationship between a college student in Illinois and an obscure poet living on the Isle of Skye. Their letters over the next thirty years compose the gentle love story found in Jessica Brockmole's debut novel, Letters from Skye.

David Graham and Elspeth Dunn had never met prior to his first fan letter. He comes across her book of poetry while recovering in the hospital from a college prank gone wrong. She, receiving his first letter via her publisher, is genuinely surprised that one of her "humble little works have fled as far as America."

Their letters begin hesitatingly, sharing thoughts about writing, their own very different worlds, and their interests. We as readers are privy to their innermost, private thoughts. She confesses to playing a coronet and having a secret longing to study geology, while he loves dancing and "painting the dean's horse blue." 

They are innocents, giddy over this new friendship with someone from such a foreign homeland. They do not know where these letters will take them as they reveal more and more about themselves and their words, but the correspondence continues regularly as they warm to their topics and to each other.

But soon the War comes and their correspondence changes.  Their letters are discovered by others close to them with sad consequences for both writers. This becomes a relationship that cannot endure, and David and Elspeth face a reality that is not expected.

A second story also plays out in the novel via a series of letters written in the 1940s between a mother and her daughter. Margaret, the daughter, has run away to be with her own "pen friend," a soldier recovering from wounds and soon heading off to rejoin the fight against the Germans during World War II. We read letters between mother and daughter detailing surviving bombings of London and the problems with loving a soldier. Again, their correspondence reveals more and more about these two women who, unlike David and Elspeth, seem to protect their secrets rather than reveal their personal histories. 

This is a delicate book of words, of wonderful language from an era where people wrote what they felt, played with phrases, and delighted in nicknames and jokes private to the correspondents. That people can communicate, grow a relationship, and even fall in love through letters without ever meeting or seeing a photo seems quaint today. But in the hands of a skilled writer like Brockmole, words in the letters exchanged between Elspeth and David have life and honesty in their passion and urgent desire to communicate with one another on an intimate basis.

I fell in love with my wife via the letters we exchanged over the course of a year between our homes in the United States and India, so I know personal relationships between ordinary writers such as Elspeth and David are possible and can produce a great love. Twenty-eight years later, my wife and I still write to each other, whether cards for special occasions, emails when we are apart, or notes on our kitchen blackboard. 

Letters from Skye is a special book, a beautiful, secret look into the world of two young people who meet, fall in love, and deal with the consequences of this relationship -- all through their letters. A wonderful way to spend a few hours reading, peaking into the lives of these charming people and feeling the genuine warmth of true friendship and passion found in these letters.

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

Comments

Previous posts

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Hanff, Helene. 84 Charing Cross Road

Wonderful correspondence between a New York City writer and a antiquarian bookseller in England centering on the recommendation, discussion, and purchase of quality books (at a cheap cost!).

Semple, Marie. Where'd Ya Go Bernadette: A Novel
  

Quirky, funny, and satiric epistolary novel detailing an unusual family who plans a trip to Antarctica, only to have the mother disappear just before the departure. (Previously reviewed here.) 

Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Semple, Maria. Where'd You Go, Bernadette. New York: Little, Brown. 2012. Print

First Sentences:

The first annoying thing is when I ask Dad what he thinks happened to Mom, he always says, "What's most important is for you to understand it's not your fault."

You'll notice that wasn't even the question. When I press him, he says the second annoying thing, "The truth is complicated. There's no way one person can ever know everything about another person."

Description:

It is difficult to describe this book. Satiric? Quirky? Fresh? Screwball? Surprising? One word works for me: "delightful," and in every sense. 

In Where'd You Go, Bernadette, author Maria Semple, a former writer for television shows "Arrested Development", "Mad About You," and "Ellen," again shows her skills at deftly portraying quirky characters in their seemingly normal but off-beat lives and relationships.

The story focuses on Bee Branch, the brilliant eighth grade daughter of Elgie and Bernadette, who all live in Seattle. After achieving perfect scores (again) on her report card, Bee asks her parents to fulfill their promise to give her anything she wants if she can achieve this, (a promise made to ward off her earlier pleads for a pony). She chooses a trip to Antarctica for the entire family. Then the fun starts.

Bernadette, the mother, is aghast at this proposal. She is virtually a recluse, avoiding both the city of Seattle and its idiotic inhabitants. She rarely leaves her home, a sprawling, collapsing former Catholic school for wayward girls, delegating all mundane tasks and arrangements to Manjula, an online service professional in India for $.75 an hour.

Elgie, the father, is a highly-placed engineer at Microsoft, developing robots that act on mental commands, and vending machines with face recognition to provide any customer with the specific snack, toy, or drink uniquely suited to him. 

Eventually the Antarctica trip is scheduled, but one small problem arises: Bernadette, the mother, has disappeared just days before the trip is to begin. 

While this all sounds like a lightweight look at a bunch of fluffy, zany people, that is far from the truth. Well, not too far, but far enough. Through correspondence and other letters, layer after layer of these people is uncovered to reveal their past lives, their relationships, and their dreams. Characters begin to grow and seem much more understandable, sympathetic, and certainly less zany through their letters, diary entries, emails, and other jottings. 

The situations and all the other minor characters are wonderful, from pushy neighbors to concerned doctors trying to institutionalize Bernadette, to people from the past wanting to know why Bernadette has forsaken her international fame to isolate herself in Seattle. Throw in some penguins, Antarctica, TED talks, and a neighborhood mudslide and you have all the elements of a modern screwball comedy.

I love epistolic novels where everything is revealed via printed documents rather than traditional dialog and descriptions. Of course, Bernadette had me hooked from the opening pages that start with Bee's latest report card and glowing note from her teacher about her future. 

To wrap this up, I'll leave you with these wise words from a review by Holley Simmons for the Washington Post Express:

If you read only one book this summer about an agoraphobic mother and her broken promise to take her daughter Bee on a trip to Antarctica, make it this one.

Well said.

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

Comments

Previous posts

 ____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Torday, Paul. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen 

Another epistolic novel (told with letters, documents, diaries, etc.), this one about bringing the sport of fly fishing to the Yemen desert. An absurd proposal is taken seriously by a Sheik, an engineer, and the Sheik's beautiful land agent. Loads of fun and extremely cleverly-written