Gordon Ramsay

The Snowman by Raymond Briggs is a classic about a boy who builds a snowman that comes to life. It's full of magic but also quite sad. It's perfect for reading with the kids. Sadly I don't remember my father reading to me, so I'm determined that will never happen to my children. It's become a tradition to sit down and read it together, and it's as much a part of Christmas as opening stockings, touring the restaurants on Christmas Day and visiting the Chelsea Pensioners.

- Gordon Ramsay's Recipes from a 3-star Chef is out now (Quadrille, £40)

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Kate Mosse

Bad costume drama put me off Dickens so I read A Christmas Carol only a few years ago.

I now have the zeal of the convert! It is the rock on which the English Christmas is founded! Its moral — that kindness and compassion bring greater happiness than money and status — is straightforward. But Dickens's extraordinary imagination makes it endure. Think of the Christmas ghosts, of the spectre of Tiny Tim's death and of Scrooge looking in through brightly lit windows. It is a novel of redemption, of second chances, of all the “what ifs” that we would love to have in life.

- Sepulchre by Kate Mosse is published by Orion at £18.99

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Joanne Harris

Robertson Davies' multilayered and enigmatic The Deptford Trilogy is a pleasure that I reserve for myself at Christmas. The story begins with a single act — a boy ducks to avoid a snowball that hits someone else — from which three novels unfurl like a series of magic tricks, borrowing from myth, history and magic to create a tale

in which, as in another Christmas favourite, Frank Capra's film It's a Wonderful Life, everything is connected, no one is insignificant, and wonders lie hidden beneath the surface just waiting to be discovered.

- Joanne's latest novel is The Lollipop Shoes (Doubleday, £17.99)

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Matthew Hoggard

The book that I enjoy getting my gnashers into at Christmas is The Beano Annual. I have every one of them since 1976 (the year that I was born), usually bought for me by my Mum and Dad. Just the job for a good giggle when your brain's switched off after a huge Christmas feed.

- Matthew Hoggard lines up with the England team for the first Test match against Sri Lanka in Kandy, starting this morning.

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Joanna Trollope

The Tailor of Gloucester is Beatrix Potter's masterpiece. It's about Christmas and snow, magic and morality, and romance. My grandfather was Canon of Gloucester cathedral, so it was always special to me as a child. I now read it to my grandchildren It has ravishing watercolours and a very satisfactory ending. In fact,

it would make a wonderful Christmas ballet. I have a copy by my bed most of the time because it really is so remarkable.

- Joanna Trollope's novel Second Honeymoon is out in paperback in January (Black Swan, £7.99)

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Patrick Moore

I tend to pass over Christmas as I have no family, but my Yuletide reading is assured. The astronomer Michael Maunder has written Lights in the Sky about all sorts of lights, from aurorae to will o'the wisp. I have watched cosmic lights often enough, but Michael is a specialist and will have some new slants on them. For fiction, nobody can equal Agatha Christie, but I do like Jeffrey Archer because his books are so clever and readable. I put by False Impression for a calm period. It would be great to read it under a display of Northern Lights!

- Patrick Moore has edited the 2008 Yearbook of Astronomy (Pan, £15.99)

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William Boyd

I can't stand Christmas in this country, so I flee abroad and try to ignore the whole event. I read a lot while I'm away and tend to favour lengthy biographies or multi-volumed journals. Something about one year ending and a new one starting makes journals particularly apposite — another mortal recording time passing. This year I have The Journals of John Fowles. I read volume two (1965-90) first, because I met and reviewed him in the 1980s, but I'm now going back to volume one (1949-65) to see what made this lucky, acclaimed, bestselling, wealthy writer so glum and misanthropically world-weary. Fowles felt that his journals were better work than his novels. He may well be right.

- William Boyd's Any Human Heart has been reissued in the Penguin Celebrations series (£7.99)

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