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[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

The Pickwick Papers is Charles Dickens first book and was released initally in 19 instalments over 20 months in 1836. It was very successful and let the poorer parts of the population read something when the price of a book would be beyond them. They were also illustrated. Dickens was, at the time, unknown. The book version was released the following year. I have to admit that I struggled with this. I think my problem is that the book consists of a series of seemingly unconnected incidents and not a flowing story. I've read Bleak House and Nicholas Nickelby (Oliver Twist and The Christmas Books) so am familiar with Dickens' prose and story telling but I don't really like short stories (except for Thomas Bernhard's The Voice Imitator) and I struggled to see the whole book in this. It might have been easier for me to split it into the chunks that it was originally published in (listed on the internet), which is what I'll do in the future when I read it again. The prose is amazing and I read the full, unabridged and illustrated Wordsworth Classics copy, some 784 pages long. I didn't find it all that funny either, I have to say. I'm glad that it wasn't my first Dickens as this could easily have put me off.