For five decades, Alan Maitland was celebrated for his resonant mellow CBC radio voice - and perhaps, most famously, for the stories he read over the airwaves in his alter ego of Fireside Al. For 19 years, Fireside Al read his favourite stories to a devoted radio audience and even though Alan Maitland died in 1999, his voice has been captured for posterity in a highly valued set of sound recordings of these magnificent performances.

Now ten of Maitland's favourite Christmas stories are being given new life in this Christmas gift book for the whole family. Fireside Al's Treasury of Christmas Stories includes:

The familiar words of O. Henry's celebrated short story, "The Gift of the Magi" Along with Francis P. Church's famous Christmas editorial: "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" "The Santa Claus Trap" by Margaret Atwood Stephen Leacock's gentle seasonal wit in "The Errors of Santa Claus" Robert Louis Stevenson's poem "Christmas at Sea" and Robert Service's "The Trapper's Christmas Eve"

Each with a very different take on the theme of seasonal love and joy. And there are more delectable treats in store from Fireside Al's Christmas cupboard.

The treasury gains special lustre from the magnificently detailed and richly colored paintings of Alan Daniel, Canada's best-loved illustrator of children's books. Above all the package is completed by a bound-in CD of Alan Maitland's reading of the ten stories included in the book.