Hi All:
Jackie and I made it through 4 of the 5 Dickens "Christmas" books and enjoyed each of them to varying degrees. While the Christmas Carol is certainly a classic and we enjoyed it thoroughly, we really liked Cricket on the Hearth (which turns out that it's nothing like the cartoon short movie), and the Battle of Life. Both have some interesting twists at the end of the books that you don't expect, and both have something valuable to teach. Cricket on the Hearth gives good advice on how to deal with difficulties in marriage (look inward, not outward, and look for the best in your chosen companion), while the Battle of Life teaches something about the joy that comes of self-sacrifice for the benefit of another. Hopefully, if you didn't read either of these, this might be sufficient encouragement to pick them up and plow through them...after all, they're really pretty short.
Now, on to the new year. We need to decide on the next book or books that we would like to read. I'll start with a couple of suggestions. I've heard good things about the following two Wallace Stegner books: (1) Angle of Repose; (2) Crossing to Safety. I hear they are both pretty quick reads. So there's my suggestions. What does everyone else want to read?