Tips for Students: Classic Holiday Reads for Winter Vacation

One sure-fire way to unwind during your winter break is to finally pick up a book that isn’t school work. Below, you’ll find a couple holiday classics from Charles Dickens and Washington Irving, as well as a holiday mystery from W. Somerset Maugham. You’ll also find a few classic fiction novels you’ve probably been meaning to read for ages.

As a gift to our readers, we’re sharing these complete stories online for free through our partners at the Questia library. You can even view them on the go with the Questia App. Enjoy!

A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens’s famous Christmas tale of redemption, A Christmas Carol, is the perfect fireplace read this winter. For many families, it has become a tradition to read each year. As Ebenezer Scrooge struggles to evade his imminent doom, three helpful ghosts teach him the error of his ways in this classic English novella.

Old Christmas

Written by Washington Irving in the 1800s, Old Christmas contains five holiday stories: “Christmas,” “The Stage Coach,” “Christmas Eve,” “Christmas Day,” and “The Christmas Dinner.” They portray the warm-hearted English Christmas celebrations he experienced in Birmingham, England and helped to change the image of the Christmas season in America.

Christmas Holiday

Christmas Holiday is a dramatic tale written by W. Somerset Maugham in 1939 about a young man’s thrilling trip to Paris. There, he meets a troubled but passionate woman who is homeless and pining away for a love who turned out to be a murderer.

Tarzan of the Apes

Christmas tales not for you? The Legend of Tarzan movie trailer was recently released, with the new live-action movie premiering next year. You’ve probably seen the Disney cartoon before, but have you read the original novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs? Published in 1912, Burroughs completed this work an entire century ago. Burroughs published many sequels during his lifetime, and there have been numerous movie adaptations, including two early silent films.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

This is the famously whimsical story by Lewis Carroll. A sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, appeared in 1871. In this one, Alice falls down a well into a strange country where she becomes a giantess or a pigmy by partaking of alternate bites of cake and has remarkable adventures with the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the Duchess, and other strange characters.

Peter Pan: The Story of Peter and Wendy

You may have caught the live musical on television last year, but have you ever read the original tale? Author J. M. Barrie’s story of Peter Pan first came to life as a play written in 1904, then as a novel adapted in 1911. This may be a perfect solution to family reading time at your home this winter.