Review: A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It was Christmas time, so it was time to re-read "A Christmas Carol". Why is it worth re-reading? Here are three reasons...

One of the greatest opening sentences ever: "Marley was dead: to begin with."

So many memorable (and funny) passages:

“Why do you doubt your senses?” “Because,” said Scrooge, “a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”

And, sadly, still relevant in places:

“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy...

Worth reading every Christmas. God bless us, every one!

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Review: A Room with a View

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Read this while on holiday in Florence. Went looking for the Pension Bertolini (it is now a hotel) and many of the other sights described in the book. Loved the city. Loved the book.

It is laugh out loud funny in places. It is the kind of book that on almost every page there's a line you want to share with the people around you. For example, from chapter 1:

"You must have it," said Miss Bartlett, part of whose travelling expenses were paid by Lucy's mother—a piece of generosity to which she made many a tactful allusion.

or

He preferred to talk to Lucy, whose playing he remembered, rather than to Miss Bartlett, who probably remembered his sermons.

and

He is nice," exclaimed Lucy. "Just what I remember. He seems to see good in every one. No one would take him for a clergyman."

I could go on!

It was interesting reading it straight after The Masters of Sitcom: From Hancock to Steptoe. Galton and Simpson may have invented the TV sitcom but so much of the humour in this book comes from the situations that it is clear Galton and Simpson were standing on the shoulders of giants.

Serious issues are addressed: class, sexuality, education, passion, repression... but it is seriously good fun and a seriously good read

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