Global edition of ‘Christmas’ is published

Andy’s book ‘Christmas: A Short History from Solstice to Santa’ has just been published in the UK, USA, Australia and New Zealand in a beautiful full colour hardback edition, with other language versions set to follow…

This brand new global version, published by Ivy Press (a division of the Quarto Group, ‘the world’s leading global illustrated book publisher’), is a sumptuously illustrated, insightful and entertaining tome on the background to Christmas, developed from Andy’s 2017 limited edition book, which accompanied his popular seasonal lecture. With a greater emphasis on global festivities, Christmas: A Short History from Solstice to Santa looks set to become something of a seasonal classic for anyone wanting to understand the deeper layers to this extraordinary annual event. Completely redesigned and presented in full colour, this beautiful hardback book, with 144 pages and a gold embossed cover, is now available to buy in all major book retailers.

Christmas traces the festival’s evolution from spontaneously emerging Solstice celebrations in ancient times, with astrological connotations, to its Christian transformation and the many different expressions it has given rise to in the two thousand years since. The book also follows the season’s travails following its ban by the Puritans in the 1600s and its subsequent ebbs and flows in revivals since, especially in the Victorian times. If you thought Christmas was a cozy, straightforward and easily dismissible festival, think again; Christmas has radical credentials and Andy shows how it can still have great meaning for us today, for all its commercial misuse. Read it and feel very Christmassy…

Christmas: A Short History from Solstice to Santa can be ordered from Amazon here.

A special edition with an alternative cover is also available through The Book People catalogue and online service here.