Guest blogger Paul Grech is busy preparing his Christmas reading pile …

It is, I think, pretty clear that we won’t be celebrating Christmas as usual this year round. There will be none of the usual social and cultural events that normally make this period such a special one. Those who, like me, find themselves with a bunch of leave days that they need to eat up before the end of the year will have to get creative to fill the time.

Of course, one hopes that the weather plays along to allow trips to what’s left of the Maltese countryside. But, given how the rest of 2020 has gone, it will be pouring every day to make sure everyone stays in.

To be completely honest, filling the time won’t be too much of issue for me. Just as I’d imagine it won’t be for anyone else who enjoys reading. There is always more to read than there is time but this year has swept away a lot of the usual distractions making reading one of the few things that we’re actually allowed to do.

Around this time of year I usually pick up an old copy of Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol for a re-read. This is a habit driven partly by the story but also the nostalgia that it can evoke. It just feels more like Christmas when I read it.

That is precisely the kind of feeling that I will be needing more of which is why I’ve decided that during December I will only read Christmas-themed books.

And there seems to be quite a rich selection from which to pick. For sure on my to-be-read is The Man Who Invented Christmas which talks about Charles Dickens and how A Christmas Carol actually saved his career as a novelist. There’s also a variant to Dickens’ famous work in the form of Samantha Silva’s Mr Dickens and His Carol.