Philip Jenkins's Christmas list

To give

If you know anyone interested in history, religion, art, or travel, or who simply has an interest in superb writing, alert him to Patrick Leigh Fermor, arguably the finest English-language travel writer of the last century. His trilogy records his teenaged odyssey from England to Con­stantinople in the mid-1930s. An excellent way to get into his writings is through Artemis Cooper’s recent biography, Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure.

Over the last three decades Britain has enjoyed a wonderful flowering of what we broadly call folk music, but which is wide-ranging in its integration of contemporary styles with traditional materials. After fierce internal debate, my choice for this year is The Moral of the Elephant, by Martin Carthy and his daughter Eliza Carthy. It’s a lovely collection of songs, with virtuoso performances on guitar and fiddle.