Catching up with myself.

Edith Sitwell - I found a book by her in the cottage at Melmerby. The Queens and the Hive. Read only a tiny bit though.

Old Curiosity Shop - I have now finished reading. Take it slowly and don't rush to follow the plot seems to be the key. Enjoy the diversions, the characters and the scenes.

Tiffany's - of course I shall have to re-read the book now - Truman Capote.
Seems I need a wander round the local and not-so-local secondhand book shops, or possibly just search online. Though that's less interesting.

The Old Curiosity Shop - the book

I have started reading this, and find I have to allow myself to slow down and take in the scenes.
I normally tear through books, but with Dickens I can't. I have to read slowly and accept that there'll be side-tracks and cameos, and odd characters who are there for the sake of it, and as part of the background.

If I don't read it in this way, I miss the humour and I lose the plot. So I'm making myself take it at a much gentler pace.

Reading The Old Curisoity Shop

I have begun to read The Old Curisoity Shop. I always have to slow down a bit to read Dickens. My first question is - who is the 'I' character in the book?

But Dickens then removes him anyway, and does the 19th Century ominscient author - nothing surprising about that - it's just no longer fashionable, I guess.

Quilp is even more obnoxious in the book than he was in the TV adaptation - his treatment of Mrs Quilp in particular. I am unsure how she got herself into the invidious position.