FBF Team

Hello booklovers, Our outgoing Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy is behind today’s Advent door, bringing with her one of her magnificent festive poems, Pablo Picasso’s Noel. Throughout this charming little book, beautifully illustrated by Léa Maupetit, we follow Pablo Picasso and his dog on an artistic journey around a small town in France on Christmas Eve. […]

Hello booklovers, What is it about Christmas and night time? Despite the darkness and cold which would usually induce grumbles and misery, Christmas evenings are my favourite time of the day. I love seeing Christmas lights brighten up dark windows as the sun goes down, and the beauty of a cold starry night is a […]

Hello booklovers, All hail Shirley Hughes, providing the most decorative of bookish back drops to my childhood and that of my children,  whose literary and illustrative genius definitely comes to the fore at this time of year. Her Christmas treats – Alfies Christmas, Lucy and Tom’s Christmas, The Christmas Eve Ghost to name but a […]

Hello booklovers, I am thrilled to bring you festive literary fans a Christmas anthology from one of my all time favourite writers, Jeanette Winterson. Christmas Days is an anthology with a tale and a recipe for each of the twelve days of Christmas. A lovely celebration of the period of time after Christmas day where traditionally […]

Hello booklovers, To add to the already riveting conversational topics with which I bore my friends and family throughout the year, I am particularly fascinating at Christmas. I know a great deal about the story behind the bringing in of the Yule log; the history of the Christmas tree; where the plum is in the […]

Hello booklovers, On the 7th day of Advent, we give those needing an escape from all this merriment a tale from one of our most prestigious crime writers, P. D. James. The Mistletoe Murder is a wonderfully self aware collection of four short crime stories with a festive theme threaded through each. The eponymous The Mistletoe Murder is a […]