Kevin's Watch

no one has mentioned a Christmas Tale. maybe his best known work?

Hi Sgtnull. I'm (crazily) reading all of Dickens' works in chronological order. That means that after I've finished Chuzzlewit, next on my list is Dickens' "Christmas Books". Once I've read them I'll post my thoughts

I'd say that or Oliver Twist, Null.

in New Hampshire we all read Great Expectations.

I finished Martin Chuzzlewit last night. Amazing stuff. I keep trying to convince my wife that Dickens is second only to Shakespeare in English literature, but with each Dickens novel I read I'm starting to think he can go toe to toe with the great playwright.

Chuzzlewit in a few words? Funny, family, America, money, self, Dickens maturing as a writer (still only 30 when he wrote it), and two of his best characters in Pecksniff and Mrs Gamp.

Great Expectations is the big Dickens novel taught here in Australia in English Lit in high school - but I never did English lit, I was too busy with Maths

Bumped! I have been reading The Pickwick Papers, my first Dickens novel, and I am thoroughly enjoying it! Fairly entertaining, though there have been couple dark tales along the way.

Since this was Dicken's first novel, I've been pondering just reading his work in published order... which means it'll be forever before I get to A Tale of Two Cities

And I just remembered that I have read A Christmas Carol, so tPP is my second Dickens book.

love Tale of Two Cities.

btw has anyone heard from Duke as of late? i see he claims Australia, our mythical land people know of him?

Nice that I got to meet Duke at Elominfest 2014, and he, Wayfinder, ussusimiel, and myself hung out drinking beet in a downtown Albuquerque bar discussing what questions we might ask of Stephen R. Donaldson that night. Good times!

I was a sucker for David Copperfield. It was my first foray into Charles Dickens' work, and it took a while to adjust to the older style of language, but once I adjusted to it, the STORY is what captured my heart. He wrote great stories!

I loved Oliver Twist, not so much David Copperfield.

--A

I’ve enjoyed most Dickens works ~ more his use of language ~ of course you need a regenerative break between books.

I loved A Tale of Two Cities so much, that I'm considering getting a copy of A Christmas Carol to read soon.

I've read Wilkie Collins and seriously loved his work. The Woman in White has got to be one of my all time favourite books. But alas, and to my shame, I've never read a Dickens novel in my life.

I think the reason for this hole in my reading achievements is due to a, now rather silly but extended, period in the middle of my life where I read no fiction at all. I don't really recall why I went down this two plus decades route - but sufficient to say that I just found that there was so much stuff I wanted to learn about that was 'real', that I just didn't have the time for fiction as well. That and because (and I hate to say this, but I think there is truth in it) I'd loved the work of Donaldson so much - I mean so much - that nothing else seemed ever to do it for me. Everything else seemed in some way a disappointment and so I just stopped trying. I'm over this now and am keen to make up for lost time, and am thinking of trying to set up a Watch readers club to this effect.

I saw a guy on YouTube the other day extolling the virtues of communal reading when it comes to 'difficult' works - by which he was referring to what he describes as 'hardcore literature'. I think I can get this. Difficult things are often better tackled in numbers, and reading, though in essence a solitary activity, is no different. The community effect of a group reading can I'm guessing, give one the motivation to tackle works that might otherwise prove unscalable.

I'll go and set up a thread and see if there are sufficient of us left, or if there is interest enough, to make it work.