Note from the Founder

The year is just whizzing by. Before I know it, we’ll be ringing in the New Year at 6pm. That’s right, at 6pm. My family and I celebrate New Year’s Eve on Italian time — 6pm in New York where I am, which is midnight in Italy. That way, our kids are up to help us celebrate the New Year, and we’re saved from having to stay up until midnight. But before then, we’re gearing up for the holidays here at DailyLit, and you can join us by reading one of our holiday reads, writing a letter to Santa (our creative challenge), and even making your own New Year’s (literary) resolutions.

So cheers, to fun-filled holidays and a happy new year!

-Susan

Susan Danziger
Founder and CEO, DailyLit
sdanziger [at] dailylit [dot] com
Twitter:@susandanziger, @dailylit

Oprah’s Book Club Picks
We’ve got this month’s Oprah Book Club picks: Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities. In fact, DailyLit’s the only place you can read them the way the Victorians did — as serialized novels (that is, if there were email back then).

Creative Challenge: Naughty or Nice?
Have you been naughty or nice this year? This month’s creative challenge is to write a letter to Santa. Just be sure to make it no more than 50 words — Santa doesn’t have much time to read these days. Post it here for North Pole delivery. Ho, ho, ho!

New Year’s (Literary) Resolutions
Is there that one book you’ve always wanted to tackle? Come on now, think. There must be one. Well, now’s your chance. You can call out your New Year’s (literary) resolution here. Maybe these will help (from DailyLit’s own library):

The Divine Comedy by Dante Aligheri: The Inferno (38 parts); The Purgatory (33 parts); The Paradise (33 parts)
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (145 parts)
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (240 parts)
Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust (206 parts)
Moby Dick by Herman Melville (260 parts)
Ulysses by James Joyce (332 parts)
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (423 parts)
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (579 parts)
The Arabian Nights (633 parts)
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (663 parts)

Featured Feature: Gifting a Book
You may have noticed a little “gift this book” tab when you sign up for a book on DailyLit. You can arrange to send anyone a book from DailyLit that will arrive on, say, Christmas morning (or whenever you like). It can even include your own personalized message that will appear daily in your friend’s inbox along with each installment. Here are some books that might make good gifts:

Tom Peters’ The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence (you can send daily tips to your lazy boyfriend or son-in-law)
Poems by Emily Dickinson (imagine wooing your loved one with daily poems throughout the year)
Berlitz Essential French Phrases (s’il vous plait!)
The Bible (need I say more!)
Brad Meltzer’s Heroes for My Son (a little inbox inspiration)
Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother (for the sci-fi lover)
A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories or other children’s books (which niece wouldn’t want to find a daily email for her in her mommy’s inbox with a note from you)

New: Holiday Category (plus an instant mood-booster)
To put you in a merry mood, we’ve created a new Holiday category that includes such classics as:

The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry (2 parts)
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (225 parts)
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (36 parts)
And, of course, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore (1 part) — in fact, here it is (an instant mood-booster); enjoy and happy holidays!

‘TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap–

When out on the lawn there rose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter,
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon, on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of mid-day to objects below;
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer,

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Dunder and Blitzen–
To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall!
Now, dash away, dash away, dash away all!”

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So, up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With a sleigh full of toys–and St. Nicholas too.

And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof,
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack;

His eyes how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;
His droll little month was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face, and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.

He was chubby and plump–a right jolly old elf;
And I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle;
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

And to all a good night!