Christmas sparkles. It sparkles with fairy lights as candles burn late, and as we tired Cambridge students look forward to a change of pace and time to rest. At December’s start we anticipate the relaxation of home life – we muster up our last energy to pack our bags. For me, one of the most important bags to pack is the one that’s filled with books.

This year, the books I packed were mostly non-academic. The reading lists were no longer my guide as I scanned my room for the books I wanted to take home. There was the pile of books on the floor, a mix of fiction and non-fiction I'd collected throughout Michaelmas. On my shelves there were some from before the summer that I’d not got round to reading yet, and some that looked too good to start in the tiredness of term.

“Vacation reading is not only the chance to escape but the chance to reflect on both the bitter and the sweet of the year gone by – another contrast to term-time reading.”

This is the irony of being a student: the desire to read manifests itself in these piles of forgotten fictions, rather than in the detailed tomes which give us knowledge of our chosen subjects. We find our course’s books stimulating, but it’s often the stories that actually inspire us to read – and this is a difficult tension to hold in term, when the course books must be the priority. Course reading can weigh us down, making us lose some of the wonder of immersing ourselves in texts. This is what I found when I packed up my bag of books ready to take home: the desire and wonder of reading was hoped for in the holidays rather than found in the term.

I arrived home and opened the first book. It was a story, Zafón’s The Shadow of the Wind. It begins with this sentence: “I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time.”

A father and a son enter into a mystery of adventure, intrigue and tension. The ‘Cemetery of Forgotten Books’ is where it begins, and it is this setting that holds particular poignancy. Those piles of books I brought home? They were forgotten until Christmas gave me space to remember them. Reading this story at the opening of the holidays gave me space to rest and relax, to stretch out my weary limbs and escape before refocusing on the tasks ahead. I found once more that the desire to read rests on vacation stories rather than term-time texts, and this, although ironic, is good. To read in the vacations is to read differently than in the depths of week five. It is to have a necessary break and respite from all the thinking.

Following that, I read Shauna Niequist’s Bittersweet. It’s non-fiction and beautiful, inviting you to read her “thoughts on change, grace, and learning the hard way.” She shows that life is never wholly good or wholly bad, but a mixture of bitter and sweet, dark and light – and here, I find Christmas. Christmas is the story of light coming into darkness, the Son of God bringing ‘life and light to all mankind.’ Vacation reading is not only the chance to escape but the chance to reflect on both the bitter and the sweet of the year gone by – another contrast to term-time reading.

Books we enjoyed in 2016

Unexpectedly, this theme of bittersweet reflection continued as I read The Kite Runner, Hosseini’s famous and poignant tale set prior to and during the Afghan war. It follows a wealthy boy and his father as they struggle to connect, become refugees, and continue their lives on another continent. The boy, now man, is then called back to Afghanistan by a dying friend and is given the chance to reconcile himself with a childhood companion he once betrayed.

I read this and was stung by the fact that we have said ‘never again’ to the atrocities of war and the hardships of the refugee lifestyle as described in this tale – and yet, 2016 has seen them play out again, this time in Syria. Christmas reading becomes a hard reflection, and a motivator of active hope in 2017: what will I be reading and what will it make me think twelve months from now?

Next I began to read a book very different in style and content: How to Hygge by Signe Johansen. Hygge, a Danish word meaning ‘a feeling of cosiness...kinship and conviviality’, is a lifestyle trend that's appeared in the UK this year, encouraging a way of life that's sociable and  takes pleasure in the simple things. What can we do to be content during the winter months? When times are dark and difficult, where can we find each day's joy? In Johansen's book, amongst others, we begin to see a pattern of life that focuses on joy rather than pressure, active hope rather than despair.

“Christmas reading becomes a hard reflection, and a motivator of active hope in 2017: what will I be reading and what will it make me think twelve months from now?”

Finally before Christmas, I immersed myself in some of the childhood and Christmas classics I've known forever. At least once a year I pick up C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books, allowing myself to travel through the pages (rather than through a wardrobe) to a land of adventure, dragons and the joyful imaginings of being a child. Aslan roars with fierce gentleness, restoring Narnia to its rightful state; I travel with Lucy, Peter, Edmund and Susan and partner with Aslan in the battle. Next I find myself on Prince Edward Island with Anne Shirley, learning how to see the world differently through Montgomery’s writing and Anne's antics. The last few chapters of Gaarder's The Christmas Mystery take me right up to Christmas Day; this gem of a book unfolds a new part of the mystery of the Christmas story with a chapter for each day of advent.

In Christmas reading I have found once more the joy of reading. Being able to pursue the texts I’ve chosen instead of those prescribed on a reading list has allowed me to pause, process and respond to some of the headlines of the past twelve months. This type of reflective reading is not so possible in term time and often that’s a little frustrating, particularly as Cambridge is known for learning and development through reading and research. Yet I also see that this type of reading is better done outside of term, in the space provided by vacations. Holiday reading becomes the deep breath in before diving back into the world of academia; it is the space to rest before we re-pack our bags, travel back to Cambridge and dust off our textbooks ready for term to begin