Christmas in New York

In Christmas in New York, Daniel Pool takes the reader on a tour of present-day New York Christmas attractions (the Rockefeller Center tree, Fifth Avenue holiday windows, the shows, the sidewalk Santas...). He also tells little-known stories about Christmas in New York (how Maurice Sendak decades ago worked on F.A.O. Schwarz window displays; why - via Guy Lombardo - "Auld Lang Syne" became the official New Year's song; and the history of that venerable Manhattanite, Santa). And, finally, there is a section on "The Ghosts of Christmas Past" - New York Christmas traditions of years ago. A marvelous mingling of the now and then, Pool's book conveys the true New York Christmas spirit.

DANIEL POOL has spent most of his adult life teaching and practicing law in New York City. His first book, What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew (Simon & Schuster, 1993), was an alternate selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club, Quality Paperback Book Club, and the History Book Club, as was his second book, Dickens' Fur Coat and Charlotte's Unanswered Letters (HarperCollins, Spring 1997). He lives in New York City.