Welcome to this week’s blog, and our roundup of your comments and photos from last week. We’d love to hear what you’re planning to read over the holidays. We’ll be back in the New Year (and comments will stay open until then.) Hope you have a fine time - and manage to find some space for reading.

In case you are overwhelmed, here’s a useful discovery from Applecake. One that might make your Christmas chores go a little easier:

I’ve just discovered that I can download an audio book from my local library to my phone to listen to while wrapping presents, cooking or walking the dog - all activities where you can’t read at the same time but made hugely better by a good book. I’m listening to The Clock Winder by Anne Tyler and hearing the book, one I know quite well, rather than reading it, has given me a different perspective on it. It’s made me pay attention to the smaller details more than usual. I think I skip a lot when I’m reading, to be honest. I don’t mean to, but I’m just enthusiastic about getting through a book. So, audio books, who’d have thought...

This enthusiasm was shared by simplicitydrifter:

Audio books from the library are also brilliant for anyone recovering from an operation, or otherwise unwell and out of circulation. Hurrah for our public libraries - we’re basically clubbing together to provide shared access to books and community aren’t we, at modest cost per person?

Another fine discovery came courtesy of MsCarey:

In my teens I read a bit of the Russians (Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky) and was, predictably, wowed by the experience. And I’m pretty sure that, as best I could, I gave some thought to the majesty of the writing at the time. I could not be more surprised, therefore, that here I am some decades later reading Turgenev for the first time (Fathers and Sons) and my only critical response is: wow, it’s so Russian. Thinking back, this was pretty much my reaction to reading Chekhov for the first time a couple of years ago. So there you go. Russian writers; they’re terrific. So Russian.

Here’s a fine review of James Salter’s Light Years from julian6:

Finished reading James Salter’s beautiful novel - Light Years. An exploration of a marriage whose apparent perfection is a mirage. The book exhibits Salter’s celebration of love, culture and landscape - his glory in the sensual - an aestheticism that seems to bring language into the regions of fine art. If this seems rarefied - removed from the concerns of the struggle for existence, which in many respects it is, then it should also be noted he can fathom the anguish of the human heart in wonderful little cameos - such as the fear of Lia’s servant near the end of the book. Contemplation of the fierce despair of death, disease and the capacity to endure are never less than central to his vision. This vision is also notably non-judgmental - there is a richness of response - that is akin to Whitman - a celebration of the living world for its own sake - beyond moral dictums.

Enjoy an unusual seasonal association from frustratedartist:

Over the last few years I’ve read quite a few Zola’s Rougon-Macquart novels in December- and so I associate him with Christmas. A couple of years ago it was Germinal, but this year it’s one of the more low key ones, Une Page D’amour’. As always, a great joy to read.

As in all of his novels which I’ve read, each chapter is largely confined to a specific, vividly evoked, location. These chapter-long set pieces, with their contrasting moods and limited time scale, are the literary equivalent of the movements in a symphony or an act in a play. Or maybe they’re like long takes in a film- many of them have a ‘real-time’ feel to them, covering the events of about the amount of time it takes to read them. I imagine Zola writing each chapter at a single sitting. I’m sure he didn’t, but it feels that way.

And finally, everythingsperfect recommends a book which probably couldn’t contain less of the seasonal spirit - but is nonetheless wonderful:

Last night I finished The Sheltering Sky, bumped up to the top of my tbr pile thanks to recommendations here. So thank you to whoever recommended it. Beautiful and disturbing read, wonderful at evoking the Sahara landscapes and the dissolution of the mind. Quite something.

Happy Christmas! Thank you all for your contributions so far this year. TLS has been a fount of wisdom, fun and intelligence. It’s been a reassuring gleam of light in dark times, as well as a source of excellent book recommendations. It’s been a great pleasure. Here’s to more of the same in the New Year – comments here will stay open until 2 January, when we return for a fresh TLS.

Interesting links about books and reading

• In case you haven’t read it yet, here’s The Spectator putting the ouch into WH Smith: ‘a national embarrassment’.
• The always reliable Dangerous Minds have put up a fascinating gallery of early War Of The Worlds illustrations.
• The Goldsmiths Prize have launched an app featuring first drafts of winning novels, a look at the fresco behind Ali Smith’s wonderful How To Be Both and more.
• An alternative list of 2016’s literary heroes from Influx Press.

If you would like to share a photo of the book you are reading, or film your own book review, please do. Click the blue button on this page to share your video or image. I’ll include some of your posts in next week’s blog.

If you’re on Instagram and a book lover, chances are you’re already sharing beautiful pictures of books you are reading, “shelfies” or all kinds of still lifes with books as protagonists. Now, you can share your reads with us on the mobile photography platform – simply tag your pictures there with #GuardianBooks, and we’ll include a selection here. Happy reading!