A Christmas Carol

Some years ago, I went to talk on forming a book club. As a writer and reader, I was very interested in books and talking about books. The person giving the talk got up and basically said that she only read Charles Dickens. And she read him over and over and over again. 

Blink. Blink. 

That statement, that choice, her belief that he was the only author worth reading, still confounds me and not just because I write novels. But this really isn’t a rant/whine about that. 

Because of that experience, I was, well, prejudiced against Dickens. Don’t ask me how I managed to get through high school without really reading Dickens. (I was a great skim reader.) But I did. 

One Christmas, I realized that in my own way, I was limiting myself, too, by not reading anything he wrote, just because I was annoyed. So I decided to read A Christmas Carol for the holidays. 

For the most part, the book is not at all different from the many, many adaptations, shows and movies based on his story. What was “new” was reading his actual words. 

He is/was a really good writer. And he wrote something so powerful and yet so simple that it not only endures today, but keeps getting re-done, remixed, repackaged. At the core, it is a powerful story about opening your heart to hope, to others, to remembering what is truly important. 

And it’s not very long. So, if you’re looking to “read” Christmas in between all the other holiday stuff, check it out. 

But he’s not the only great author that ever lived. Just saying. 

Do you have a Christmas read to recommend? If you could only read one author, who would you pick? 

Perilously yours,

Pauline