Happy Birthday, Charles Dickens! Bleak House Challenge #Dickenschallenge

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Charles Dickens at his Desk in 1858 – This was from Wikimedia and I make no claim to ownership

Today, February 7, is Charles Dickens’ birthday. Dickens needs no introduction, though last year I filled a couple of paragraphs with introduction.  And thinking back to last year, if you remember, Yvette Prior and I ran a little “Little Dorrit” challenge.  The idea was to read the book before the anniversary of Dickens’ death on June 9th and then have a discussion.  I ended up reading the entire book at the last minute.  Oh well.  But it was fun and I’m glad we did it.

In fact, it was so fun that we are repeating the challenge!  No, no, no, we are not asking you to read “Little Dorrit” again!  No, this year the challenge is to read “Bleak House” by the 9th of June.

When I did a search of “the best Dickens’ book” I found that many scholars give that honor to “Bleak House”, even though it is not necessarily the most popular.  And, of course, it is all a matter of opinion, so a few scholars had other books as their top pick.

So, the way it works is that Yvette and I will read this book and each of us will do a post or two on it, but to make it fun we are inviting others to join in!  We’d like other posts about it and discussion on our posts.  The more people who participate, the better it will be.

As an incentive, we are going to put the names of the participants into a drawing for an Amazon gift certificate so you can buy more Dickens’ books.  OK, just more books, they don’t have to be Dickens…

Earlier today, Yvette put up a post about the challenge.  She would like us all to use the hashtag “#Dickenschallenge” which I am doing starting with this one!

Yvette also pointed people to a free version here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1023

I have already started reading the book (paperback) so I won’t have to do it at the last minute this time!  In fact, I’m about 125 pages into it.

Are you ready?  On your marks, get set, GO!!

*

Some links to my posts for the Little Dorrit Challenge.  You can find links to Yvette’s posts on these and on her own posts (Yvette’s Bleak House start and Little Dorrit final post)

My first Challenge page
Recent Reminder
Little Dorrit Kick Off Post
Final Thoughts on Little Dorrit

30 thoughts on “Happy Birthday, Charles Dickens! Bleak House Challenge #Dickenschallenge”

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      I wouldn’t be surprised since he wrote a lot about consequences of debt, but the nursery seems like an odd place for it. Teach them young. lol. I’m sure touring his house was interesting since he was such an interesting man.

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  10. Sandra Pavloff Conner

    Oh my. I’m surely tempted, but a little undecided. I used to love Dickens’ books, but over the past couple decades I’ve found them very labor intensive due to his extreme wordiness. However, I do so appreciate the man’s talent and his faithfulness to his art and to getting it out to the public. I still stand in awe of the impact his writing had on the social problems of his time. He’s truly one of the greats when it comes to conveying the power of the pen.

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. trentpmcd Post author

      There is no denying that he is wordy! Last year I had a hard time getting into Little Dorrit, but once I hit a tipping point, it just flew by. So far Bleak House is easier and the beginning is going quicker, but I have yet to reach that tipping point. We’ll see…
      It would be great if you could join in, but I perfectly understand if not.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓
    1. trentpmcd Post author

      Thanks, Yvette.
      This time I decided to skip all of the commentary and such. I did not read any reviews or synopses, so I am going in blind. I may read something after I am done.
      Anyway, glad you’ve at least picked it up – we still have 4 months, but that is what I said when i first looked at Little Dorrit!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓
      1. Prior...

        Well my commentary was short – and not sure if you noticed but I recycled the post from last year – just edited it (I will update it later) and my limited commentary was from a little looking but I also watched the movie (2 different ones) many years ago – but remember very little – so I am going in half blind – hmmmm

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply ↓
        1. trentpmcd Post author

          Sorry, I mean I didn’t read the commentary in the book – there are two sections that are about 20 pages each. I read them for Little Dorrit and got nothing out of them without reading the book, and they lead me to some odd conclusions before I started, so…

          Liked by 1 person

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  13. Pingback: Happy Birthday, Charles Dickens! (Bleak House Challenge”) – priorhouse blog

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