Reason for Reading: The book was sent to me unsolicited. I read several short story collections last year but haven't been reading many, if any, this year at all and the thought of spending some time with the short story format again was enticing, the book had come at just the right time for me.This is a collection of the stories that Otto Penzler has had commissioned to be written for his store each year beginning 1993. He then has them bound and gives them away to customers at Christmas. The l...

All of these short stories involve Otto Penzler or his staff, and the action takes place, for the most part, in his bookstore, The Mysterious Bookshop. It sounds like it could be great fun, after all what's better than being in a bookstore at Christmas time, surrounded by wonderful books with a mystery thrown in to boot?Unfortunately I found most of these stories to be poorly written with predictable outcomes. I realize that it is difficult to pen an intriguing story when every story must have a...

The origin of this book is such a wonderful piece of biblio-magic and the collection represents a decade and a half of loving contributions to readers of the mystery genre who travel from far and wide to support a specialty shop run by one of humanity's foremost experts on mystery writing. Before you even get to the stories, that's a wicked cool mark in the book's favor - - and the stories themselves very rarely disappoint. I've been introduced to a store I want to visit, and more than a dozen s...

This book is short stories written by mystery writers given as Christmas gifts to the patrons of the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City. Each story has to be set at least partly at the book store, over Christmas and the owner has to be present. I particularly enjoyed these stories: “The Holiday Fairy” by Jeremiah Healy is about three successful mystery authors who (view spoiler)[conspire to gift the bookstore’s owner with a mystery for Christmas (hide spoiler)]. “The 74th Tale” by Jonathan San...

I really wanted to read the entirety of "The Black Lizard Big Book of Christmas Mysteries" before the end of the year, but it just does not look like it is going to happen. Instead, I hit upon this collection while searching at the local library for a different collection, one by Edward D. Hoch. It all worked out since this was equally related to the holiday season & is a collection of stories commissioned annually, between 1993 and 2009, by Otto Penzler for printing on a small, limited basis to...

Dnf on the second story because of language

A great book for Christmas season. I have several books of short stories that were collected by Otto Penzler and never really knew who he was. I do now!Every year Penzler, the owner of the real Mysterious Bookshop in NYC, asks mystery authors to write a short story that he then publishes (usually for friends and customers). The restrictions are that it somehow concern the bookshop (even if only as an employee, customer, etc.) and that it be set around Christmas.Some of the authors are ones I kno...

A collection of short mystery stories written by 17 authors over seventeen years. Otto Penzler, owner of the Mysterious Bookshop in New York had the authors, one at a time, create a short story which he gave away as a gift each Christmas for the 17 years. A good Christmas read and the mix of stories is very nice. Some are better than others, but all worth reading. Now to see what else Mr. Penzler has put together.

Decided to read a Christmas story this year..ended up being an anthology. All the tales take place at times in the Bookshop, and Otto is in them also. With some of the big guns in the mystery genre, this was a nice cozy mystery collection of who-dun-it's, during the holidays.

As a Christmas gift to his loyal customers, Otto Penzler, owner of The Mysterious Bookshop, solicits a short story to be written and published by Penzler's publishing company; this book is a compilation of some of those short mysteries. Not so long ago all I read were mysteries, and I forgot how much I enjoyed them until I picked up this collection. Since a minimum requirement is for the story to be set at Christmas and have the bookshop as well as Penzler in them, I felt that this was enough of...

"If ever you see a man put his fingers in his ears and whistle Dixie to keep from hearing the truth, you assume he's a fool, but if he puts his fingers in your ears and starts whistling, then you know you're dealing with a journalist."Andrew Klavan, The Killer Christian (2007)It's always chancy to read a collection of stories by different authors. It's usually such a hodge-podge. In this case, this is a collection by authors who were invited by Mr Penzler to write about a general theme. The stor...

As with any anthology, some you love others meh. Once I got over the hubris of having all the stories revolve around his own store (why not just books, or Christmas), I enjoyed the store and Penzler himself being characters.My favourite story was The Grift of the Maji.

Like all short story anthologies, there were some fun, interesting stories and a few I didn't care for, but a solid set of stories. Loved the setting and premise.

Despite all of the 5 stars, this was 3.11 for me. Most likely due to the Anne Perry I refused to read and rated at 0 stars. Some of the stories in this were simply AMAZING and others were...ok or worse. The 5 stars made this entire book worth reading. My favs: 1) As Dark as Christmas Gets by Lawrence Block2) The Holiday Fairy by Jeremiah Healy3) The Lesson of the Season by Thomas H Cook (my top fav of this book by far)4) The Killer Christian by Andrew Klavan 5) What's in a Name? by Mary Higgins

really good short christmas mysteries, easy read

Otto Penzler is the proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop, an iconic New York City store for decades now; certainly if I ever get to NYC, it's the first, and fourth, and ninth place I'll check out. Some 17 years ago, he began commissioning authors to write a short story for Christmas, which he gave in bound copies to longstanding customers; Christmas at The Mysterious Bookshop is a hardcover collection bringing those stories, from 1993 to 2009, together in one volume. The requirements were that