( CNN ) -- After all the celebrating , overeating and overdrinking with friends and family , sitting down quietly with a good book could be just the thing you need . Sure , you could turn to the old holiday standbys , but if you want to think outside the Christmas box , here are 10 great nontraditional books for holiday-themed reading : . 1 . `` Pat Hobby Stories '' F. Scott Fitzgerald spent his last years in Hollywood , working on an unfinished final novel and screenplays that did n't go anywhere . His `` Pat Hobby Stories , '' wry and winning tales of a washed-up screenwriter who just never learns , suggest he never stopped learning or lost his sense of humor . The first , `` Pat Hobby 's Christmas Wish , '' has him attempting to blackmail a producer into a promotion on the day before Christmas . 2 . `` A Likely Story '' We find another writer with Christmas headaches in Donald Westlake 's `` A Likely Story . '' Westlake is best known for his crime novels ; here he goes in a different direction , with a very funny story about families in the age of divorce . Tom Diskant is doing his best to sort out a complicated personal life while trying to keep his glossy publishing project , `` The Christmas Book , '' on track . Both go wrong in unexpected ways . 3 . `` Last Night at the Lobster '' In `` Last Night at the Lobster , '' Stewart O'Nan gives us all the small details that make up a day 's work in a popular franchise restaurant . It 's just before Christmas , and we share the regrets , hopes and best intentions of the beleaguered manager after corporate tells him to shut the place down . 4 . `` P.S . Your Cat Is Dead '' James Kirkwood won a Tony and a Pulitzer for `` A Chorus Line , '' but his comic novel , `` P.S . Your Cat Is Dead , '' has its own devoted following . It 's New Year 's Eve when Jimmy , a just-dumped , out-of-work actor , catches Vito breaking into his apartment . It 's his third break-in , and Jimmy 's had enough . He decides to hold Vito responsible for everything that 's gone wrong . The two hit it off , though , and over the course of a long night , things get stranger and gayer and better . 5 . `` I Remember '' You can find a more traditional holiday in Joe Brainard 's `` I Remember . '' The episodic memoir from the New York-school poet is filled with simple striking moments recalled from the sort of middle-American childhood that we all miss , whether we had one or not . 6 . `` Santa Claus : A Biography '' There 's no bigger Christmas celebrity than Santa Claus . But like most celebrities , we only think we know him . Gerry Bowler 's sprightly cultural history , `` Santa Claus : A Biography , examines his origins and evolution . The book suggests there 's still hope for Santa , despite the corporate spokesperson and entertainment icon he 's been turned into today . 7 . `` Wise Blood '' Of course , there 's one bigger name in Christmas , the one people say gets forgotten amidst all the parties and wrapping paper . In Flannery O'Connor 's `` Wise Blood , '' Hazel Motes wants to forget about Jesus and sin and salvation so badly that he takes to the streets , preaching the gospel of the Church Without Christ . The more he insists , though , the more we do n't believe him . Southern gothic at its finest . 8 . `` An Atheist 's Guide to Christmas '' Genuine atheists have to make it through the holidays too , and they are n't confused about what they really believe . They are n't necessarily as angry as you 'd think from the current crop of Big Atheism books , either . The writers who contributed to `` An Atheist 's Guide to Christmas '' are in a friendlier and funnier mood and remain consistently thoughtful and entertaining . Edited by Robin Harvie and Stephanie Meyers . 9 . `` Doomsday Book '' The time-traveling historians in Connie Willis ' award-winning science fiction novel , `` Doomsday Book , '' do n't have religion on their minds as the holidays come to Oxford University in 2054 . Something 's gone wrong , and a young grad student is stranded back in a dangerous , plague-ravaged 14th-century England . Willis makes the otherness of medieval society disconcertingly real . 10 . `` Sir Gawain and the Green Knight '' Things were n't all plagues and suffering back then , though . `` Sir Gawain and the Green Knight '' is a tricky , playful 14th-century tale , one of the great stories of chivalry . It starts when the mysterious Green Knight crashes a sumptuous holiday feast at King Arthur 's court . He proposes a Christmas game to the best and the brightest of Camelot : `` Any one of you can try to chop off my head , '' he says , `` and if I survive , a year from now , you must let me chop off yours . '' What could possibly go wrong ?
Instead of reading the standby holiday books , try reading great nontraditional books . ` ` P.S . Your Cat Is Dead '' is by James Kirkwood , the man behind ` ` A Chorus Line '' Find out the truth in ` ` Santa Claus : A Biography '' by Gerry Anderson . Includes a Southern gothic tale with Flannery Conway 's ` ` Wise Blood ''