A merry and foul-mouthed Christmas

This week's issue is the last of the year for Guardian Review (though not for the Guardian books podcast), so we've made it an all-singing finale by inviting 25 poets to pen their very own Christmas carols. On today's podcast, we discuss their offerings - ranging from an angry revisionist version of In the Bleak Midwinter from a rich man's perspective by Sean O'Brien, to a jolly Scottish rendition of Jingle Bells by Jackie Kay - with Review editor Lisa Allardice. We also offer our own seasonal treat: the Manchester Carols, written by poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy and performed on CD by Manchester Carollers and the Northern Chamber Orchestra. In an interview with the self-appointed master of slang, Jonathon Green, we discuss some of the challenges of the three-volume, 1.5m-word project to chronicle hundreds of years of slang history. And as the time runs out to get those last-minute christmas presents, we ask a range of Guardian writers and editors, in areas ranging from fashion to economics, to nominate the best books they have read this year. Reading/listening list The Manchester Carols, by Carol Ann Duffy, and Sasha Johnson Manning (Naxos) Green's Dictionary of Slang , by Jonathon Green (Chambers) At the Loch of the Green Corrie , by Andrew Greig (Quercus) Whistling Vivaldi , by Claud Steele (Norton) A Journey , by Tony Blair (Hutchinson) Aaaaw to Zzzzzd : The Words of Birds, by John Bevis (MIT Press) Decoded , Jay Z (Virgin) A Gate at the Stairs , by Lorrie Moore (Faber) The Hand that First Held Mine , Maggie O'Farrell (Headline) Jump! by Jilly Cooper (Bantam) The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis (Hamish Hamilton) Alone in Berlin , by Hans Fallada (Penguin Classics) Whoops!: Why everyone owes everyone and no one can pay, by John Lanchester (Penguin) Homer and Langley , by EL Doctorow (Little, Brown)