lunababymoonchild

Highway to Hell - AC/DC

Yes, Dickens does a good job of making Bounderby wholly unlikeable and the mineshaft incident was heartbreaking I thought she was lovely and how she ended up was just right at the end of the book, I thought

(I've Had) The Time of My Life — Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes

Bright Lights, Big City - Jimmy Reed

Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue? - Crystal Gayle

Golden Eye - Tina Turner

I should point out here that Nicholas Nickelby is a very long book, Wordsworth Classics has 800 pages! It is worth that though. Then again Martin Chuzzlewit seems also to be 800 odd pages. As it turns out Hard Times was a LOT shorter!

[Note: spoilers in review] Set not in London for a change but in the fictional Northern town of Coketown, an industrial, polluted environment with downtrodden and poverty stricken workers and downtrodden women in wealthier families. Naturally, being Dickens it is set in the Victorian era and is full of his usual social commentary. Thomas Gradgrind is a strict totalitarian and educates both of his children (unusual for the era as one of his children is female). His wife still lives but not that you'd notice since she seems to be unwell most, if not all, of the time. Josiah Bounderby is a factory owner and doesn't seem to possess an ounce of compassion. A circus - a real circus I mean, with performers etc - makes an appearance, twice, which lends a little levity to the unremitting hardships of the ordinary workers, hardships that the reader gets to know well. Gradgrind's children grow up and his daughter marries Bounderby (as expected) who is a full 30 years older than she is and his son gets older (the only way I can think to describe it). Both daughter and son pay a heavy price for their father's obsession with factual education where their imagination isn't acknowledged let alone catered for. Meanwhile a thoroughly honest man is blamed for something he could not have done and as he returns to defend himself he falls down a mineshaft and dies. This is superbly written, as you'd expect, and very effectively shows the difference between the classes and that the wealthier classes are not necessarily better people - nothing much changed there then! Gradgrind realises in the end his mistakes and tries his best to deal with the situation that he understands he created but Bounderby just gets worse and his whole life history is revealed at the end of the book but it doesn't explain his character so he seems to be irredeemable. Sharp social commentary, expertly written by a master of the craft this was nevertheless an enjoyable book. Recommended

Currently reading Pietr the Latvian, Maigret number 1 by Georges Simenon

Light My Fire - The Doors

Finished Hard Times. Marvellous

(I've Had) The Time of My Life - Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes

I too bought The Man in Black and it will arrive tomorrow. Still currently reading Hard Times by Dickens himself and enjoying that. Interested to hear what you think of this.

Body Ache - Britney Spears

Don't Go Breaking My Heart - Elton John

All the Young Dudes - Mott the Hoople

Girls Just Want to Have Fun - Cyndi Lauper

Big Girls Don't Cry - Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons

No, that's why I'm staying with it. I haven't read Martin Chuzzlewit either but will go back to it. I have read Nicholas Nickelby and it's marvellous! Classic reader's dilemma, too many books but not enough time - then again you do have three months, you might get them all read! I fancy the Uriah Heap one too.

Sarah Bakewell, Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Enquiry and Hope. A favourite author of mine, I bought this in hardback

I did buy The Man in Black, can't wait!

It is weird and never happened before but that's alright, I'm enjoying Hard Times anyway.

I've been looking into this (because it's fascinating) according to Lynn Shephard herself Lynn Shepherd Books this book is called The Man in Black and is much easier to get than Tom All-Alone's but doesn't come in Kindle either - it's part of a four part series and only this one (book 2) doesn't come in Kindle! I didn't read the whole article linked above as it's quite long and I wanted to point this out as soon as I became aware of it but I will. "Mr Dickens names the place Tom-All-Alone’s after a boyhood memory of a house built by a local eccentric. Its name sums up the invidual and collective misery and loneliness of the place." - Tom All Alone's explanation I'll have to get a copy now!

We've had a shower but it's not any warmer

I must have. I know that nobody else touches my Kindle so I must have somehow switched books.