Dear Great Book Guru,  This year is the 25^th anniversary of Elizabeth Weinstein’s beloved Cookie Swap . There are many cookie swaps throughout the Village- in fact a group- the Sea  Cliff Moms-  had its first get together this year and it was a great success so the  tradition grows! While at the Cookie Swap, there is always talk of new books and old favorites.  Do you have something I might read - something with a holiday slant?  Long Time Cookie Swapper

Dear Long Time Cookie Swapper,  At this time of year,  I always find myself rereading  Oscar Hijuelos’s  MR. IVES’ CHRISTMAS. When we first meet Mr. Ives,   his life is perfect- after  beginning life as a foundling, he was adopted into a good home and now in 1954,   he is a successful New York businessman with a beautiful, loving wife and two adored children and buoyed by a deep  faith in the goodness of all things.  By the second chapter, with the murder of his young son on Christmas Eve, his faith has been destroyed.   The rest of the book deals with Ives’s struggle to make sense of his loss. While it might seem like an odd choice for holiday reading, there is something enormously uplifting about this book as we follow Ives on his journey from a hollow grieving man to a gloriously forgiving redemptive figure. In many ways, it is a contemporary version of Dickens’s CHRISTMAS CAROL as we travel back in time to joyful moments and then forward to moments of unspeakable horror and then forward again to Ives’s moment of ultimate salvation.   This beautifully written story of his journey through life will remain with you for a very long time. Highly recommended!