One of my absolute favourite books ever. I devoured this series as a kid - it was my Harry Potter, basically - and this volume is I think the best of them. Well, this and The Grey King. I spent many, many hours as a child grappling with how truly terrible the Light could be. Hawkins gets screwed over good, it's really kind of monstrous what happens to him. And as a fantasy-devouring kid, who mostly came from a background of Narnia and Middle-earth, where good was good and bad was bad and there was a giant yawning gap between, The Dark Is Rising was a painful revelation. It blew my tiny mind, is what I'm saying, and I loved it because of that.

And there's the whole Christmas nostalgia thing, too. Coming from the Antipodes where December is sunshine and warmth, the whole midwinter ritual is strangely attractive.