David Copperfield<\/i> by Charles Dickens<\/p>\n
I’m disappointed.<\/p>\n
Not in the book. The book was awesome. But I feel like I blew the experience.<\/p>\n
I should have gotten a hardback. Probably an old one, with some wear on it. Something with a little character. I should have found a couple days over the holiday break to read it straight through, in front of a roaring fire. I started this one by downloading it from Gutenberg.com and reading it on my Palm. But pretty soon, I felt I needed to upgrade the experience and bought a paperback copy when we happened on a mall bookstore in New Jersey.<\/p>\n
I thought Great Expectations<\/i> was okay when I read it in high school. A Christmas Carol<\/i> is a fine work. But David Copperfield<\/i> is really<\/i> good and, more importantly, very funny. It’s chock full of really enjoyable characters and elegant prose.<\/p>\n
Nick Hornby repeatedly recommends Copperfield<\/i> in his now-defunct Believer<\/i> column, and I have to say he hasn’t steered me wrong yet. The man knows a good book when it bites him on the nose.<\/p>\n
It’s a good way to kick off 2009… a story of perseverance through adversity.<\/p>\n
There’s a nice pile of books waiting for me next. <\/p>\n
My brother got me The Magicians and Mrs. Quent<\/i> for Xmas, which appears to be a book in the vein of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell<\/i>. I asked him what it was, and he said he got it off my Amazon Wish List, which was embarrassing. I’ve no idea what motivated me to add it (I really need to start leaving little memos in the blanks provided on those things), but the first couple of chapters seem promising.<\/p>\n
Sarah Brown’s Cringe<\/i> compilation is in my briefcase, courtesy of paperbackswap.com. If you haven’t heard about her Cringe Festivals, I invite you to check out her blog<\/a>. <\/p>\n And, of course, the ever present Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies<\/i>. This book is entering its third year on my Currently Reading pile, sitting side-by-side with Dawkins’ The Ancestor’s Tale<\/i> and Watson’s Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud<\/i>. It’s a good book, but it is not light reading. I really want to knock this one out, because there are people waiting to discuss it with me, not to mention I’m interested in what it has to say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" David Copperfield by Charles Dickens I’m disappointed. Not in the book. The book was awesome. But I feel like I blew the experience. I should have gotten a hardback. Probably an old one, with some wear on it. Something with … Continue reading