ABSTRACT
At christmastide in england , the zone of kinship is hypertrophic. Psychological balance is threatened by either much too much kinship, or much too little. On New Year's Eve at midnight, the television provides us with a jolly party on screen, then cuts to a dear old lady sitting alone with her dog, singing along to Auld Lang Syne on her television. In either of these extremes, curling up with a book can be unusually restorative, and books read over Christmas can be specially memorable, which is why we should regard the annual pre-Christmas recommendations by literary journalists as an integral part of the calendrical ritual.
