The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

As many of you may know I began re-reading the works of Dickens a couple of years ago. It's not that I don't read anything else, but I do do try and get through three or four of them a year.

I finished the OCS today and remembered what an incredible piece of writing is the death of Little Nell. At the time it caused a sensation - people were weeping on the streets, there was knashing of teeth and renting of garments as well as questions in the house. And no wonder. It's an extraordinarily maudlin and sentimental section - and he gets away with it. The rhythmn is poetic, the imagery utterly of its time and yet it is still as powerful today as it was then.

If you haven't read any Dickens for a while, or were forced into it at school and shunned it ever since, then give him another whirl. He wrote so fast that there are patchy sections but the plotting is exquisite, the timing immaculate, the characterisastion goes from the absurd to the ridiculous and the language is imaginative and witty. Don't rely on the film - the book is much much better!