Which of Charles Dickens' books is your favourite?

[Ellipsis]

Today is the 200th Anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens. Happy birthday Charles!

Which of Dickens' books is your favourite?

I must admit I've only read four - A Tale Of Two Cities, Bleak House, Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol (inc. The Chimes). Of those, A Tale Of Two Cities is my favourite - not just for the quality of the writing and the story, but also because of when in my life I read it and the impact it had on me ...

[TheOtherHalf]

I cant remember EVER reading a whole book of Dickens but favourite story on tv was Bleak House

[T&S]

Hard Times...hardly laugh a minute, but very good none the less.

[smart1]

That is my favourite too Ellipsis.

[rowanwitch]

Never managed to get through one of them he may be a great writer but I just can't get past the first few pages

[carolegif]

I had to read Hard Times for my degree, so that took the edge off it! I love David Copperfield and Great Expectations because of the characters.

[shoota]

Can't be doing with any of them, sorry.

[yogasun]

Love Dickens. Probably has to be 'Great Expectations' but love 'Tale of Two Cities', 'A Christmas Carol' and 'Oliver Twist'. Never managed to get into Pickwick Papers.

[DTCwordfan]

Good question.....

The Tale of two Cities or Bleak House for me, for their intensity and also that he wrote the former at the Oxenham Arms on Dartmoor, a really nice hostelry that I have used.

www.theoxenhamarms.co.uk/

My least fav, probably Oliver Twist, as it was the selected Dickens for my O Level Eng Lit.......

[maggiebee]

A Tale of Two Cities is my all time favourite. Saw the film in black and white as a young teenager with Dirk Bogarde in it and immediately fell in love with him - what a mistake that was lol.

[MarkRae]

I can't abide Dickens. His attempt to write about the working class is akin to Phil Collins trying to write about the homeless...

[rowanwitch]

Phew I thought it was just me.. stilll back then the poor would not have written their own stories working too hard and poor levels of literacy

[woofgang]

I have tried but cannot get Dickens at all. Or Thomas Hardy

[rowanwitch]

Or the Brontes or Jane Austen oh dear ...

[Baldric]

Have never completed a Dickens novel, hard going,and Hardy was just too obscure for me.

[maggiebee]

Tried to read Tess of the d'Urbervilles but it left me cold. When I told a friend she said it should only be read by a teenager - I was apparently too old and experienced to enjoy it. Put me right off Thomas Hardy.

[rowanwitch]

I sort of feel like Jane Austen is the predecessor of all those Mills and boon novels... Quite liked H G Wells though

[shaneystar2]

Not keen .
We had him drummed into us at school and had to read Great Expectations simply because school was that area and his Chalet and Gadds Hill Place were just down the road .Boring ,boring .....

[The Builder]

Balders ........... patron saint of lost causes? Or am I reading too much into your last post ;o)

[rowanwitch]

When classmates were ploughing their way through Wuthering Heights and Far From the madding crowd I took the modern fiction option and read sci fi, Orwell and Edna O'brien

[Ric.ror]

I did not realise how hard this was because I always thought Great Expectations but then I remembered Hard Times and then how I cried at TOTC and then etc etc etc
So I guess I like all the ones I have read - not Barnaby Rudge though or Pickwick Papers as I have not read them