It's almost Christmas again! It comes around more quickly every year, just like our grandmothers told us it would as we got older. Only we didn't believe them, as children, when we couldn't wait and Christmas always seemed a long way off.  Now with busy lives, and never enough time Christmas races towards us quicker and quicker every year.

            Here at the bookshop we had to order this year's Christmas cards in January! Yes really.

            But despite lack of time and commercial pressure to buy earlier and earlier, it's only in November and December that the real excitement of Christmas starts to build. Christmas to me means new books.  One of the reasons I wanted to run a book shop was that smell of new books which I will always associate with Christmas.  Books were precious when I was a child.  We had the library and school books of course, but almost the only time you had a brand new book (especially a hard back) was at Christmas. The smell of new books is as much the smell of Christmas to me as the smell of pine trees and roasting turkey.

            So which books to choose. What's going to be big this Christmas?

            Celebrity biographies are a Christmas staple. Peter Kay, Michael Palin and Ken Bruce all have biographies which are tipped to be big this year. 

            But the thing I'm looking forward to is a new cookery book Delia's Christmas.  I might not be able to cook, but I can dream. If you prefer fiction the big thing is still Dan Brown's Lost Symbol.

            There are of course lots of books for children, but perhaps the most exciting is Return to the Hundred Acre Wood. In the spirit of AA Milne and EH Shepherd, David Bendictus and Mark Burgess have created a book of all new Pooh stories.  Brilliant for children, but I suspect a lot of adults will be buying it for themselves.

Julia Donaldson also has a new book this Christmas, Tabby McTat.  I love her books and dread the day my children are too old to listen to them. I will be making the most of this Christmas and know more than one child who will end up with a Julia Donaldson book in their stocking.

            As a book seller I'm often asked to recommend books as Christmas gifts. I try my best and always have lots of ideas but ultimately the best book is the one you know someone will really enjoy. It might be a best seller, or it might be something altogether more obscure. It doesn't matter. What matters is the enjoyment books bring.

            Luckily there are books on every subject and in every budget. And they all come with that new book smell at    absolutely no extra cost.

Caroline Overfield.