Second paragraph of third chapter:'Whose writing is this?'
A year or so ago, the group of friends with whom I had previously read War and Peace and Anna Karenina at the rate of a chapter a day decided to give Charles Dickens’ last complete novel a go, but with the twist of reading each of the monthly installments of four to six chapters at the start ( Read more... )

Oliver! won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1968, and picked up another five: Best Director (Carol Reed), Best Musical Adaptation Score, Best Art Direction, Best Sound and a special award for choreographer Onna White. It lost in five other categories.


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Second paragraph of third chapter:Peggotty had a basket of refreshments on her knee, which would have lasted us out handsomely, if we had been going to London by the same conveyance. We ate a good deal, and slept a good deal. Peggotty always went to sleep with her chin upon the handle of the basket, her hold of which never relaxed; and I could not ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter: The names of the Twelve apostles were, Simon Peter, Andrew, James the son of Zebedee, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Labbaeus, Simon, and Judas Iscariot. This man afterwards betrayed Jesus Christ, as you will hear bye and bye.
A not terribly remarkable re-telling of the ( Read more... )

There were a couple of categories where there was a pretty clear front runner as soon as it was decided to hold the 1939 Hugo vote, and this was one of them - though I must admit it was surprising that all of the viable nominees came from the same stable. My normal practice is to reveal my votes in reverse order of preference, and I shall do so ( Read more... )

'We want to know, in the first place,' said Mr. Pickwick, 'whether you have any reason to be discontented with your present situation.'
'Afore I answers that 'ere question, gen'l'm'n,' replied Mr. Weller, 'I should like to know, in the first place, whether you're a-goin' to purwide me with a better?'
I got to page 118 of this and was beginning to ( Read more... )

I loved this book when I first read it a quarter of a century ago, and I loved it again now. Things I thought of, in no special order ( Read more... )

I came home from points east today, a rather horrible journey where the planned travel time of seven hours ended up more like thirteen. However, this meant that I read a lot of books en route, combined with a small backlog from the outbound leg, so there will therefore be much bookblogging this afternoon.

Hard Times was flagged up to me by first F ( Read more... )

It must be around thirty years since I read this book, which came towards the end of Dickens' career (followed only by Our Mutual Friend and Edwin Drood). For today's reader, the portrayal of the poor as either comic or villainous grates somewhat, redeemed a bit by Magwitch's personal history when we eventually find out about it; and few of the ( Read more... )

One of several classic Dickens books which I had not previously read, and which eventually worked to the top of my list. I am sure that it was spell-binding social commentary in 1838, but the character of Oliver seemed to me much too good to be true. Any child coming from that sort of brutal institutionalised background would have pretty serious ( Read more... )