The Browser interviews Brent Landau about"The Real Christmas Story." The traditional narratives probably don't survive critical examination.

Rebecca K. Morrison,"Did the Germans invent Christmas?" TLS, 22 December, reviews Joe Perry's Christmas in Germany: A cultural history.

A.W. Purdue,"Christmas in Nineteenth-century England," THE, 23 December, reviews Neil Armstrong's Christmas in Nineteenth-century England.

Brian Hayes,"Electrifying Language," American Scientist, Nov/Dec, reviews Dennis Baron's A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution.