I am a fan of older literature, much of it from the Victorian period through to the "pulp" era of the 1920s and 1930s. One issue that reading a lot of this material presents is that the attitudes and mores are often at loggerheads with those of today. Ideas that would instantly raise concerns about racism or sexism if a writer used them today abound even in the more progressive writers of the time.

So, it's Charles Dickens' 200th birthday today. I got thoroughly put off him by Grade 11 English and have never really given him another try. Since his stuff is all Public Domain and readily available in ePub format from either Kobo's free ebooks section or Project Gutenberg, I suppose I really should give the old boy another try.

Are you a Dickens fan, foe, or just indifferent?

Anyhow, Happy Birthday, Charlie!

Mendalla

IT and geek news site The Register has been running a poll to determine which s-f novels that have never been the subject of a film should be filmed. It began with a simple request to suggest titles, progressed to a poll in which readers were asked to choose among the top 50 nominated stories, and ended by declaring that Use of Weapons by UK writer Iain Banks is the novel that their readers would most like to see as a movie.

Boxing Day found me reading "The Bishop's Man" by Lyndon MacIntyre, winner of the Giller Prize.

Unlike a mystery, that I didn't wish to put down...the Bishop's Man I found myself forcing myself to take breaks from in order to savour the prose.  Though I wished to read through, find out what had happened in Honduras, discover what would occur with the main characters, I also did not wish to read it too quickly.