Advent book will ensure you can enjoy calm not before, but during the storm

It is around this time of year that bookstores in our shopping centres start stocking new titles that they hope will appeal to the Christmas market.

If you are a celebrity who has written an autobiography, a best-selling writer of a detective series or you have produced a really funny book about cats, it seems this is the time to publish.

As a self-confessed bibliophile, I love this time of year and am glad to say Christian publishing is also keen to use the approach of Christmas to promote new titles. They particularly issue books to help people focus on the real meaning of Christmas. “Advent books” are like the literary equivalent of a chocolate advent calendar.

There are a variety of titles that collect together a series of daily readings, thoughts and prayers to take us from the beginning of December up to the celebration itself and, often, beyond.

Of the many different books on offer, a perennial favourite for me was written several years ago by the Bishop of Chelmsford, Stephen Cottrell. The book is worth the purchase price for its title alone: Do Nothing: Christmas is Coming.

At a time of the year when life seems to become more and more frantic this call acts as a great corrective if we are worried that it is all going to become too much for us. However, the book’s contents are also excellent.

The author Garrison Keillor said: “The lovely thing about Christmas is that it is like a thunderstorm and we all go through it together.”

Bishop Stephen has produced this small but important volume to ensure that we do get through it. It is full of wisdom, insight, grace and beauty and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Each daily reading will take no more than a minute or so but the content is far from shallow.

With Advent almost here I can only urge you to get hold of a copy, find a comfy chair and enjoy the calm not before but during the storm.