The Keeping Season

The people we were not born to, and chose anyway.

There are twenty-five stories in this book, one for every night until Christmas Day. Read them one an evening from the first of December. Read them aloud after dinner. Or curl up with the whole book on a snowy Sunday and finish it in an afternoon. It was written for all three.

The first book in this series was about family. This one is about friends. Old friends and new ones, friends from the sandbox and friends from the next desk. A neighbor three windows down. A stranger who became something more. A man who buys two movie tickets every Christmas Eve and sits beside an empty seat. A night cleaner who leaves yellow notes on a stranger’s desk. A boy who walks his friend home the long way, every day, for a whole school year.

"Everybody keeps somebody."

Somewhere around the fourth or fifth story, you may start thinking about a friend of your own. Maybe one you have not spoken to in a while. That friend is the reason this book exists.

Twenty-five nights, twenty-five friendships

Twenty-five original chapter plates, one per story, plus The Twenty-Five Lines the book was built around and a note on The Keeping Season.

There is a twenty-sixth story.

It isn't in this book. It's called Two Pencils. For thirty years, two people carried on a conversation in the margins of a single library book, and neither of them ever knew who the other one was. It's yours, free, in the Krishnaboon library.

A song for every story

Every story in this book is getting a song of its own: gentle songs, written to be heard quietly on a winter evening. They are free to listen to, and new ones are added as they are finished.

The first songs are on the way