Tagged: Charles Dickens

Books and Reading

Preparing for the 2023 George Eliot Chapter-a-Day Read-along: Adam Bede

The 2023 George Eliot Chapter-a-Day Read-along begins in just two days with Eliot’s first novel, Adam Bede. Mary Ann Evans wrote Adam Bede when she was close to 40 years old. She had already been fairly successful as a non-fiction writer, translator, and editor up to that time, but she had resolved to become a novelist. Her first published fiction in book form was a set of three short stories collected in Scenes of Clerical Life. This was also the first time Evans used George Eliot as a...

Books and Reading

David Copperfield Chapter-a-Day Read-along Wrap-Up

Yesterday was the final chapter of David Copperfield in this year’s Chapter-a-Day Read-along schedule. This post is the place for you to leave your thoughts about your experience in reading Dickens’ own favorite novel of his. What did you gain from reading it? What challenged you? What uplifted you? What surprised you? It had been over twenty years since I last read the novel, and I was very pleased to discover that it was still as enjoyable and moving as the first time. I had no very clear...

Books and Reading

Preparing for the 2021 Chapter-a-Day Read-along: David Copperfield

As the bells of Notre Dame cathedral begin to echo and fade away, we get ready to close the book on the story of Quasimodo and Esmerelda and pull the next Chapter-a-Day Read-along book off the shelf, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. I have read several Dickens novels, and of them all I have the warmest feelings toward David Copperfield. But it has been almost twenty years since I last read it, and I have forgotten most of the story. I have carried these fond feelings with me...

Homily

A Scrooge on Gaudete Sunday – Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Advent

Today we see the beautiful roses and the rose vestments, and the rose colored candle that represent the third Sunday of Advent. These are visible reminders that no matter what we are going through, no matter what is happening around us, as Christians we are always people of Good News. And when we receive good news, how do we react? We rejoice. And that’s why this Sunday is dedicated to rejoicing. Why? Because we now know that the one we long for, the one our soul longs to...

Books and Reading

Announcing the 2021 Chapter-a-Day Read-Along

This is the official sign-up post for the 2021 Chapter-a-Day Read-along. This marks the fourth year of the read-along, and we are once again back to reading several books instead of just one. As you might remember, there aren’t too many books that have exactly 365 chapters, and we’ve already read the most well known: Les Misérables and War and Peace. So, like we did in 2019, for 2021 we will be reading several different books whose chapters add up to 365. By joining along in reading one...

Books and Reading

Preparing for the 2019 Chapter-a-Day Read-along: The Old Curiosity Shop

We are a week away from beginning our final chapter-a-day book of the year, The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens. We end our reading of Lilith next Saturday, October 19, and begin The Old Curiosity Shop on Sunday, October 20. From Don Quixote to The Count of Monte Cristo to Lilith, we’ve gone from Spain to France to the region of the seven dimensions, and we’re going to end our year in England. There’s something about reading Dickens in the twilight of the year, as leaves are falling and logs...

Books and Reading

Announcing the 2019 Chapter-a-Day Read-Along

This is the official sign-up post for the 2019 Chapter-a-Day Read-along. The Les Misérables Chapter-a-Day Read-along was so much fun in 2018 that I’m happy to host another one for 2019. The thing is, there aren’t too many books that have exactly 365 chapters. In fact, I know of only two: Les Misérables and War and Peace. I took a poll among my readers, and the vast majority of responders were not interested in reading War and Peace next year. So, rather than focus on one book in 2019,...

Hunted Down by Charles Dickens

Book Review / Books and Reading

Hunted Down by Charles Dickens

Hunted Down by Charles Dickens is a novella divided into five parts and recently published as a stand-alone Kindle ebook from Open Road Media. Hunted Down has all the hallmarks of a Dickens story: characters with evocative names (Julius Slinkton, Miss Niner), wonderful Victorian sentences, and a mysterious plot. Unfortunately, the mystery takes a while to get going and the climax isn’t up to Dickens’ typical standards. Still, it didn’t take long to read, it only cost me 99 cents, and the story wasn’t horrible, only disappointingly average. For...

Charles Dickens

Books and Reading

Time to Go to That There Burying-Ground: Dickens’ 200th Birthday

Ralph Fiennes reads a moving excerpt from Bleak House as Prince Charles lays a wreath of flowers on Dickens’ grave. Today the world remembers Charles Dickens, born on this day two hundred years ago. I have a great fondness for Dickens’s works, especially David Copperfield and Hard Times. One of Dickens’ particular qualities was the ability to make one laugh and shudder at the same time. As Chesterton says, “These two primary dispositions of Dickens, to make the flesh creep and to make the sides ache, were a...