In my teenage years, I loved to explore second-hand bookshops with their seemingly random piles of previously loved books making it hard to squeeze between the overloaded bookcases. One winter, I bought a 1902 edition of "The Pickwick Papers" in two pocket-sized volumes. It was my introduction to Dickens, and I loved the crisp, browned pages and old-fashioned fonts, the humour, and the author's fantastic powers of description.

"The Pickwick Papers" firmly cemented the idea that Dickens was Christmas into my brain, and books like "Great Expectations" and "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" only reinforced the sentiment. I don't know when I first read "A Christmas Carol", but it was many decades ago, and I've basked in its glories most years since. It's my favourite of Dicken's Christmas ghost tales and an essential part of my festivities.

The most impressive aspect of this book is the imagery. Dickens's descriptions of a door knocker morphing into Marley's face, ghosts sweeping through the air trailing chains of safes and strong boxes, or the flight across a roaring sea are incredible achievements of imagination. It is easy to be blasé with our experience of computer graphics and sophisticated special effects, but Dickens's imagery is simply stunning.

Recommended to be read at Christmas... slowly... by candlelight... with a glass of Edradour 10-year-old at close hand.