All I want for Christmas...

The Writing and Journalism lecturers share their wishlists…

Two books I'd love to find in my Christmas stocking are Naomi Klein's Doppelganger, an exploration of how otherwise intelligent people fall down conspiracy theory rabbit-holes, and Zadie Smith's first historical novel, The Fraud, a re-imagining of a notorious Victorian court case. I've never known Smith to publish a dull word, either as a novelist or an essayist, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what she does with this. (Tom Scott)

I keep adding to lists of things to read and listen to all year. So what I'd like is time, lots of time. I was thinking about listening to 'Lithified' from the BBC's Lights Out series. It's about our relationship with the lithium that lies underneath Cornwall, told by someone who takes it daily in her medication. And I'd like to spend time exploring Radio Atlas, which is an incredible website with subtitled programmes from all round the world. I dip in every now and then but I'm always in too much of a rush to listen properly. (Abigail Wincott)

I’m a pretty serious gamer, so I’m hoping for a sneak peek of GTA6 and news of the next Elder Scrolls game. This year has been amazing for gamers, with Baldur’s Gate 3 and Cyberpunk: Phantom Liberty, and surprise hits like Dave the Diver. I’m hoping that 2024 will bring news of vaporware games like Squadron 42, Skull and Bones and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. (Kit Chapman)

I sometimes daydream about as imaginary long-lost great aunt who leaves me enough money to buy a house in Tuscany, but as that isn't going to happen I will settle for some sunshine, a week of it not raining, and The Complete Obscure Records Collection, which has recently been reissued as CD box set. This contains ten albums of experimental music which were curated and released by Brian Eno back in the 1970s, along with a glossy paperback book. Oh, some chocolate and the new Rupert Bear Annual please. (Rupert Loydell)

All I want for Christmas is... anything by Claire Keegan (check this out if you want a taster), Benjamin Labatut’s ’nonfiction novel' When We Cease to Understand the World and The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. But what I’d really like is a voucher for a few days of solitude in a cabin in the woods (with a log burner) so I could read them. (Amy Greenhough)

Gimme gimme doesn’t always get, not even when you’re the youngest sibling. But two video games I’d love to have for Christmas this year would be Venba and Dredge. Venba’s short narrative experience about an Indian mother moving to Canada in the 80s told through the gameplay of cooking sounds like a novel insight into immigrant narratives and the power of food. Meanwhile Dredge lets me jump back into my favourite world, one of Eldritch Horrors! Fishing up corrupted sea beasts and solving the long-buried secrets of a mysterious archipelago! Neither would disappoint, in fact both are nominated for Best Debut Independent Game at this year’s Game Awards! (Eoin Murray)

Christmas is one of the few times I read purely for pleasure. Otherwise it’s submissions to Guillemot Press and research for books. So I’d like something new and weird please. Maybe short stories. Two of my favourite story writers, Lydia Davis and Adam Marek, both have new collections out, Davis’s Our Strangers and Marek’s The Universe Delivers the Enemy You Need, but as well as these there are some debuts that look fun. Girl Country by Jacquelin Vogtman sounds suitably dark and strange, and Jolene McIlwene’s Appalachian Sidle Creek looks right up my street. I’d like some more chickens too. (Luke Thompson)

All I want for Christmas is to rest, not shop, and sit and read the very light crime books that are still in hardback prices! – the new Anne Cleeves, Ian Rankin, and Richard Osman books. Don’t judge me. 😊 (Ruth Heholt)

All I want for Christmas is a novel that will knock my thermal socks off. Something with the the inventiveness of Helen Oyeyemi, the humanity of Anne Enright, the lyrical dexterity of James Salter, the humour of Mick Herron, and the playfulness of Nicola Barker. Is that too much to ask for? (Wyl Menmuir)

For Christmas I would like any one of the following things:
Cheese – quality and quantity please. With adventurous chutney(s). Not fussed about grapes and all that but wouldn’t say no either. 
For my lower back to stop clicking when I walk too quickly. 
The new Tommy Boy Music deluxe 6LP boxset: …and You Don't Stop – A Celebration Of 50 Years Of Hip Hop. 
A massive drone. For my own reasons. 
For the editor to stop nagging me to write this list. 
                     (Craig Barr-Green)

I don’t know why but I never support anything on Kickstarter. It feels frivolous to do, even if I sometimes buy that stuff, at increased cost, later. Didn’t back The Legend of Vox Machina, etc. And so I let Brandon Sanderson's surprise lockdown books slide by. But they look interesting and wonderfully made and now I’ve got regret. So I’d love to find one of those eventually. 
     I’d also love to read Through the Garden: A Love Story (with Cats) by Lorna Crozier – a memoir about her relationship with her long-time partner, Patrick Lane. Lane founded my undergraduate CW programme, and Crozier ran it while I was there. They’ve both had a major impact on my life – directly and indirectly – so I’m very interested to read this and think about home. (Adrian Markle)

All I want for Christmas are books, notepads and nice pens… and preferably the time and space to read and write with them. Nothing too fancy mind, perhaps a couple of weeks at a cosy bothy in snow-drifted highlands by a frozen loch; or a long trip on an austere container ship in the Indian ocean; or a stint on a first class intercontinental train scooting across fin de siècle Europe, smoked salmon and champagne with professors and princesses and jewel thieves, all blissfully unaware of their own privilege and the monstrous impending chaos of the post-modern world. Or socks are good, I’m a size 10. (David Devanny)

Aside from world peace and redistribution of wealth from rich to poor (is that asking too much?) I would love a front row ticket to the play Infinite Life by Annie Baker at The National Theatre. It is a story about suffering and 'what it means to desire when your body fails you' and anything by Annie is likely to be captivating. Secondly, and if it's not too greedy, I would like lifelong membership of Apple TV so that I could binge watch the whole of the dark comedy series Succession written by amongst others the wondrous Lucy Prebble. (Nicola Coplin)

What do I want for Christmas? A clean, submission-ready draft of my new novel Winterville. It's 'done' in the sense there is a draft that can be read from start to finish. But I'm gradually working my way through it, filling in the gaps I left along the way to backfill once I knew where the story was going. The last few chapters will need to be reworked, which is to be expected. After spending 4½ years on this thing, I'm ready for it to be not just 'done' but done. (Marshall Moore)

What I really want for Christmas is to feel like I used to as a kid. Back to the late 70s and early 80s when Christmas meant everything – and I still had hair, all my own teeth and not a care in the world. Up until the age of 13, Christmas was my favourite time of year, and I would look forward to the big day from November. 
    The presents were the highlight. One year I got a bike, another a pair of stilts but each year, without fail, I would receive the Rupert annual, the Whizzer and Chips annual and a selection box so big, I would wake at 5.00am, gorge on all the chocolate and then start on the Quality Street.  
     I still love Christmas but that sheer quivering excitement has gone. At least the TV’s better but the selection boxes have got smaller, and the chocolate doesn’t taste quite the same. Bring back Texan bars! (Steve Bough)

All I want for Christmas is time. One week with no email, no meetings, and even no family. Just me, a big stack of cozy crime novels, unlimited cups of tea and chocolate biscuits. (Jennifer Young)