Christina Hopkinson shares her plans for the festive season…

The books I’ll be giving are…

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante: yes I know everyone’s talking of this amazing quadrilogy of books about two friends growing up the Naples of the second half of the century, but they are as every bit as good as their reputation. The first starts with the friends at primary school as all the seeds for their future lives. It’s like being immersed in the claustrophobic, sweaty, aromatic world of southern Italy but, unlike Lila the title character, we are allowed to escape it at the end.

Honey & Co: Food from the Middle East: even if the recipient only cooks their Cherry, Pistachio and Coconut cake, it’ll be the best cook book they’ll get this Christmas.

Life Moves Pretty Fast by Hadley Freeman: brilliant dissection of 80s movies and what they can teach us by an author whose favourite film is When Harry Met Sally. My sort of writer.

The Three of Us by Julia Blackburn: thanks to Radio 4’s A Good Read, I heard of this memoir of an artist mother, poet father and their very confused child. Anyone reading it at Christmas will suddenly be very glad of having the parents they’ve got instead of the monsters that populate the book.

What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge: Jacqueline Wilson’s recent rewriting of this story about a bossy girl who comes a cropper has made me want to revisit the original with my daughters.

It wouldn’t be Christmas without…

Jamie Oliver’s get-ahead gravy; sprouts cooked with caramelised onions and loads of bacon; the names in the hat game; a boxing day walk on Hampstead Heath; the Christingle service at St Andrews in Islington (religion for heathens – traditional carols for the parents, an orange studded with sweets for the children).

What I’m hoping for this year under the tree…

Kate Atkinson’s A God In Ruins to nourish the mind – and a nutribullet juicer to deal with a body that will have had a little too much nourishment!

Christina Hopkinson’s new novel, THE WEEKEND WIVES, will be out in Spring 2016.