How the Grinch Stole Christmas! is fifty-odd pages of Dr. Seuss and it has generated a genuinely enormous cultural footprint. A creature on a mountain hates a town's festivity, steals it in the night, and discovers the town celebrates anyway.

The 1966 animated special is where the character got his visual identity, directed by Chuck Jones - who gave him that specific sideways grin and the yellow eyes Seuss's book didn't have. Boris Karloff narrated it, which is a casting choice nobody has improved on.

What makes the story last is that the Grinch is right about something. His objection to Christmas is about noise and consumption, and the book resolves it not by proving him wrong about the noise but by showing him something underneath it.

Max the dog, saddled with an antler and a sledge, is the unsung hero of the whole enterprise.

This collection covers the Grinch. Suitable for December, or a bad mood.