And, in case no one noticed, The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries: The Most Complete Collection of Yuletide Whodunits Ever Assembled edited by Otto Penzler is our winner. Those of us in the USA have our choice of buying it for $15.99 at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or Google Play. On the plus side, you can cram a lot of cozy mysteries into 672 pages. That's a lot of entertainment from the creators of Sherlock Holmes, Brother Cadfael, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Ellery Queen, Rumpole of the Bailey, Inspector Morse, Inspector Ghote, A.J. Raffles, Nero Wolfe, and more!

Here's the Amazon UK link, where it's an absolute bargain at £1.69 (about US$2.50).

It's also available (& couponable, I think) for £4.07 at Kobo UK for anyone visiting the UK but doesn't want the hassle of setting up an Amazon UK account.

... or you could just buy the paperback for £16.58 :).

December 2015 Special Run-Off Vote
 

The typical reading time according to Amazon is 22 hours and 25 minutes, so assuming we all sleep for only an hour and 35 minutes, take no brakes, and don't eat, there's no reason why any of us can't polish this thing off in a day.

Sounds like a good plan to me! When do we start? Christmas Eve?

Speedreading without caution and with abandon, eh?

The best thing about using both Swype and autocorrect on my mobile devices is that I never have to take the blame for my own mistakes! :D

Harry, I strongly suspect that if you asked most Americans, they would guess that Dec. 25 is the last of the twelve days of Christmas. Stores and radio stations behave as if the Christmas season is over Dec. 26.

Thanks for the warm welcome, WT! :D I wonder if Asia gets both UK/Europe and US editions of the anthology. That would explain the two copies. I've seen other books with both US and UK editions available, though never at such a huge price gap.

And if I recall correctly, Russell, that it starts right on 1 November after Halloween :P I remember during my years in the US, the holiday season started progressively earlier each year haha....

My thanks to everyone who voted for my nominee!

*****

Andie, I don't know what happened this year; but for the past ten or so years, it has been common for radio stations to move to the 100% Christmas music format on Nov. 15!

The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries is way too large to read for December. We really need a limit on the size of a book for December no matter the category. There's a lot doing in December and not enough time to read a book that's that large.

I think we should scrap this one and go for a smaller book.

You have until 20th Jan to read it - that's almost a month and a half. You don't have to read the whole thing; it is, after all, a book of short stories.

We wish you a mysterious Christmas
We wish you a mysterious Christmas
We wish you a mysterious Christmas
and a haunting New Year!

:D

I'm finding that it's a quick read and easy to dip into, thus a friendly choice for a busy season. I suspect most, including me, won't have finished it when the discussion starts December 20, but one would only have to have read some of the stories to participate.