Dickens Surprise

A few weeks ago I was looking for something to read on a train journey. My eye fell on this in amongst a pile of books on the shelf, and it seemed appropriate given that this year is the 200th anniversary of his birth. I last read this a long, long time ago - probably over twenty years ago. I remembered it being dry, difficult and boring. You might say that I had low expectations.

I was completely wrong. It's great.

Maybe it's a book that I needed to be older to appreciate. It's a lot funnier than I remembered, especially at the start. And it fairly cracks along - there's hardly any filler in there. It helped that I couldn't remember a single thing about it, so none of the surprises were spoiled.
What made it even more relevant is that last weekend, just as I was nearing the end of the book, we were in London and staying not far from the street 'Little Britain' where a lot of the activity in the book takes place. We also walked past the site of Newgate Prison and a bunch of other places in the book.

So Dickens in 'not boring after all' shock. Will be trawling through the boxes in the loft for all the others I read years ago!