A stack of tomes to see you by the fireside till spring.

“A sad tale’s best for winter,” said Mr William Shakespeare. Though I hesitate to disagree with the great man, we don’t have to stick to sad tales. Or even tales. Here are a handful of books that will go excellently with your pumpkin spice latte and your roasted chestnuts. I’ve chosen a mix of fiction and nonfiction; some by way of full meals and some a collection of toothsome hors d’oeuvres. But I’ve put the emphasis – sorry Mr Shakespeare – on pleasure and readerly absorption.

I recently described his new book to Man Booker Prize-winning Mr Flanagan as a “metafictional psychological thriller”, and he said: “Is it?” But I stick by my guns. First Person is the funny, and absorbing, and mysterious, and finally horrifying story of a penniless wannabe writer who gets a job ghostwriting the memoirs of a con-man who stole 700 million Australian dollars. But in writing the book (or trying to) he gets drawn into a special sort of existential darkness. As Mr Friedrich Nietzsche says: “If you gaze long into an abyss…”

Mr William Tyndale is not, argues Lord Bragg, at all as well appreciated as he should be. This small but hugely interesting book does its bit to ensure that he is. Mr Tyndale risked, and eventually lost, his life to translate the Bible into English. This made him very unpopular with Mr King Henry VIII. Also The Pope. But he did so well at it – or as much of it as he translated before he was burned alive as a heretic – that 93 per cent of the King James Version was secretly cribbed from him. Mr Shakespeare? Learned from Mr Tyndale. In fact, argues Lord Bragg, Mr Tyndale invented modern English, among other things.

Mr Collins is the former speechwriter for Mr Tony Blair, and here he takes us on a tour of the greatest political speeches in history. It’s full of interesting things. Did you know that before he said “Tear down this wall!” Mr Ronald Reagan was going to say “machen sie dieses tor auf”? If he had, who knows? Mr Gorbachev might have simply responded: “Gesundheit!” and the Cold War might not have ended. Mr Collins makes a great case for democracy being important, too.

Ms Mary Killen and Mr Giles Wood are postmodern celebrities: they are famous for appearing on TV watching TV. Gogglebox has made them stars. People wonder how come they have remained married for such a long time if they are perpetually grumbling at one another? This funny book reveals the answer: perpetually grumbling at one another is the secret to remaining married for a long time. It’s just the thing to read as family tensions rise in the approach to Christmas.

Mr Craig Brown is a very funny parodist with a collection of unexpected interests – among them the back catalogue of Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich and the long-defunct soap opera Crossroads. To that list may be added the late Princess Margaret, about whom he has written an eccentric and very funny book.

It’s always nice to have a few short detective stories to curl up with as the evenings draw in. These two books, just out, publish some uncollected short stories from the Red Baroness and the Blue Baroness, as they were known. Here are old-fashioned stories of murder and detection, fireside style, shot through with their authors' dark wit. Nobody did it like these two. They’re a fitting pair of stocking fillers from beyond the grave.

Write To The Point: How To Be Clear, Correct And Persuasive On The Page (Profile Books) by Mr Sam Leith is out now