Well, I'm about halfway through this huge book and am enjoying every second of it.

I'm ashamed to say I never read any of Dickens before; still more sorry to add that I actually had a copy of thiis book in my possession years ago and never read it.. Why, I don't know. I think, though, that now that I have gotten around to reading it, I'm appreciating it even more.

It's a fantastic story. It's really complex, with a huge cast of characters and you can't quite figure out where they all fit in early on, but halfway in you sort of figure out where the players are.

I'm refraining from giving it a mark out of ten until I finish it, but I really can't praise it enough. It's like a soap opera, in the very, very best sense. It's really exciting.

I won't go into the ideology behind it until I've finished, but I will say that Dickens was a tremendous observer and thhis is a wonderfully multi-faceted work.