Warning: Wardrobe May Contain Lion And Traces Of Snow

I've just read a book that reminded me of how I used to feel when I was around 11 and YEARNED with all my heart for life to be less real than it is. It was (or, at the time of writing, will be, as not in fact published till September 15th) The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I won't do any of that smug "I've got a proof copy" stuff, or indeed add any spoilers, so if I say it's AS GOOD AS "JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR NORRELL" you will know what I mean, and if you don't you probably aren't a huge fan of Wardrobe literature.
Wardrobe literature, since you ask (yeah yeah), is anything that lets you believe that somewhere, if you can only find it, there is a door to somewhere amazing, or a box that contains something amazing, or a tiny odd shop that sells something amazing, etc etc, that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the boring old tax-paying workaday hangover road-rage noisy-neighbour Real World is just a waiting room for somewhere much better, where anything is possible. Wardrobe literature introduces the real world and then dismisses it. It doesn't bamboozle you by throwing you headfirst into Middle Earth or Earthsea, like a travel brochure for somewhere exotic you will never visit and don't speak the language anyway. Devotees of wardrobe literature get excited by antique shops and libraries. They feel a prickling of the hairs on the back of their necks when they see, you've guessed it, a large old wardrobe, or a hidden door, or dusty attic steps. They stop telling people how excited these things make them because they worry that it sounds a bit childish, but the feeling never goes. The phrase "based on a true story" makes them sigh heavily and switch off.
I have attached a very sketchy reading list below. If I have glaringly omitted anything, please let me know...

Suggested Wardrobe Literature for adults:

The Solitudes, Little Big - John Crowley
Declare, Last Call - Tim Powers
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susannah Clarke
The Twelfth Enchantment - David Liss
The Magicians - Lev Grossman
The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern
Waking The Moon - Elizabeth Hand
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Rivers Of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Farundell - L R Fredericks
The Glamour - Christopher Priest
The Book Of Skulls - Robert Silverburg
Mockingbird - Sean Stewart
Time And Again - Jack Finney
Prospero's Children - Jan Siegel
Weaveworld - Clive Barker

Suggested Wardrobe Literature for children:

Anything by the extraordinary and unmatchable Diana Wynne Jones
The Dark Is Rising series - Susan Cooper
The Perilous Gard - Marie Pope Osborne
Marianne Dreams, Thursday - Catherine Storr
Castle Of Bone - Penelope Farmer
Elidor , The Weirdstone Of Brisingamen, The Owl Service - Alan Garner
A Traveller In Time - Alison Uttley
The Giant Under The Snow - John Gordon
Mistress Masham's Repose - T H White
The Children Of Green Knowe - Lucy Boston
Stravaganza: City Of Masks - Mary Hoffman

The House Of Arden - E Nesbit
Tom's Midnight Garden - Philippa Pearce
And, it goes without saying, the Narnia books by C S Lewis.

Dear Father Christmas

I've moaned about this before, but the Mighty World Of Retail starts Christmas early. In our defence, a combination of postal strikes and far-flung relatives have caused the local customers to panic slightly about posting Christmas cards, so we now have a lot of them out. And advent calendars. Well, they start on the 1st of December, so there's my excuse. Oh, and obviously wrapping paper - those presents bound for New Zealand have to be seasonal. Oh, and books people might want to send like A Child's Christmas In Wales, yadda yadda yadda...

All in all, apart from not having Now That's What I Call Yuletide braying loudly in the background (we have no radio, no CD player, no speakers - not even on the PC - and the woman from the Performing Rights Society who rang to check didn't believe me, either), we have gone the way of all flesh and are now more or less 100% festive. I apologise. I also apologise for the microscopic specks of spectral green glitter on my face (thank you, Roger LaBorde stationery) that leap into vivid and scary life at certain angles but seem resistant to scrubbing. I am currently pretending I am a sparkly-faced Twilight-style vampirette, albeit one who was "turned" too old to stay young and glam for all eterniddeee.

In this scarily early spirit of festivity, I have composed my Christmas list (Mr Fishwife's favourite trick when asked what he would like for Christmas/birthdays is to reply vaguely "Oh, something nice.."). No excuses for me, here it is in all its magnificence. No hints.

1) This, to live in. I'd settle for a copy, built in a stately clearing of my choosing.

2) One of these. Alive, obviously, not in the form of a coat for some creepy oligarch's ho.

3) The Koh-I-Noor. 105 carats of pure bliss. I wouldn't wear it, far too big, but possibly I'd use it as a doorstop or something..

Go on, spoil me. And I honestly don't mind if I get two Koh-I-Noors. And I could always use the second St Pancras to keep my snow leopards in.