This week's issue is the last of the year for Guardian Review (though not for the Guardian books podcast), so we've made it an all-singing finale by inviting 25 poets to pen their very own Christmas carols. On today's podcast, we discuss their offerings - ranging from an angry revisionist version of In the Bleak Midwinter from a rich man's perspective by Sean O'Brien, to a jolly Scottish rendition of Jingle Bells by Jackie Kay - with Review editor Lisa Allardice.
We also offer our own seasonal treat: the Manchester Carols, written by poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy and performed on CD by Manchester Carollers and the Northern Chamber Orchestra.
In an interview with the self-appointed master of slang, Jonathon Green, we discuss some of the challenges of the three-volume, 1.5m-word project to chronicle hundreds of years of slang history.
And as the time runs out to get those last-minute christmas presents, we ask a range of Guardian writers and editors, in areas ranging from fashion to economics, to nominate the best books they have read this year.
Reading/listening list
The Manchester Carols, by Carol Ann Duffy, and Sasha Johnson Manning (Naxos)
Green's Dictionary of Slang, by Jonathon Green (Chambers)
At the Loch of the Green Corrie, by Andrew Greig (Quercus)
Whistling Vivaldi, by Claud Steele (Norton)
A Journey, by Tony Blair (Hutchinson)
Aaaaw to Zzzzzd: The Words of Birds, by John Bevis (MIT Press)
Decoded, Jay Z (Virgin)
A Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore (Faber)
The Hand that First Held Mine, Maggie O'Farrell (Headline)
Jump! by Jilly Cooper (Bantam)
The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis (Hamish Hamilton)
Alone in Berlin, by Hans Fallada (Penguin Classics)
Whoops!: Why everyone owes everyone and no one can pay, by John Lanchester (Penguin)
Homer and Langley, by EL Doctorow (Little, Brown)
