Thursday, December 28, 2017

Ten fictional feasts for Christmas

Kate Young is the author of The Little Library Cookbook. At the Guardian she tagged ten fictional feasts for Christmas, including:
Buckwheats
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

The Christmas scenes in Little Women are some of my favourite parts of the book. The Christmas dinner (turkey, plum puddings and jellies) that takes place when Mr March surprises everyone by arriving home from hospital is beautiful. I particularly love the moment when the March sisters, after taking their glorious breakfast buckwheats to the Hummels, arrive home to French bonbons and pink and white ice-cream, a gift from Mr Lawrence next door.
Read about the other entries on the list.

Little Women also appears among Mary Sebag-Montefiore's ten classics every child should read before they are 10, Jeff Somers's five books that are arguably the first in their respective genres, Kate Kellaway's ten best Christmases in literature, Bea Davenport's top ten books about hair, nine notable unsung literary heroines, Sophie McKenzie's top ten mothers in children's books, John Dugdale's ten notable fictional works on winter sports, Melissa Albert's five favorite YA books that might make one cry, Anjelica Huston's seven favorite coming-of-age books, Bidisha's ten top books about women, Katherine Rundell's top ten descriptions of food in fiction, Gwyneth Rees's ten top books about siblings, Maya Angelou's 6 favorite books, Tim Lewis's ten best Christmas lunches in literature, and on the Observer's list of the ten best fictional mothers, Eleanor Birne's top ten list of books on motherhood, Erin Blakemore's list of five gutsy heroines to channel on an off day, Kate Saunders' critic's chart of mothers and daughters in literature, and ZoĆ« Heller's list of five memorable portraits of sisters. It is a book that disappointed Geraldine Brooks on re-reading.

--Marshal Zeringue