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ABOUT THE BOOK For a child, the promise of a dragon will always hold out against the threat of poverty and political turmoil. The one represents magic and adventure, while the other seems suspiciously familiar to the boring things parents talk about. A Tale of Two Cities is not about dragons. And as a child, I avoided it and other similar tales of grim historical woe like the plague. However, high school has a way of forcing you to face many things that you otherwise would have avoided. Among them, I found A Tale of Two Cities awaiting me on my English required reading list. I braced myself for a painfully dull experience. But Charles Dickens made history come alive for me. His story captured the essence of everything that is beautiful and terrible about humanity, all against the vivid and violent backdrop of the French Revolution. MEET THE AUTHOR Hayley Igarashi is a student at UC Davis preparing to graduate this summer with a degree in both history and philosophy. She has been writing fictional short stories since she was a child, and a couple of her pieces have even been published in small online magazines. Only recently has she discovered how nice writing about real life can be, a realization that took surprisingly long considering her background in history. She likes to read and at the moment is most inspired by the writings of Kurt Vonnegut, Jonathan Safran Foer, Kazuo Ishiguro, and because everyone needs a guilty pleasure, George R. R. Martin. When not studying for school, she enjoys doing normal things like hanging out with friends and family and watching movies. Items on her bucket list include sky-diving, running a marathon, writing a full-length novel, and learning how to cook something that tastes good. EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK A Tale of Two Cities is a love story, but not in the traditional sense. Or perhaps more accurately, not in just one sense. The most simple way to describe the novel is to say that it is about the French peasantry’s experience before and during the French Revolution. Dickens, inspired by his own difficult childhood amongst the working poor, therefore served as champion in A Tale of Two Cities for the beleaguered, demoralized, and often brutalized peasantry. Across settings in both England and France, he elevates the humble, downtrodden poor to protagonists, allowing their suffering to be broadcasted to an audience willing to commiserate with their plights. Of course, this is work of fiction, so there’s a good old-fashioned love triangle thrown in as well, but I like to think that this novel is more about Dickens’ love for the common people. A Tale of Two Cities is his offering, brutal and terrible as it may sometimes be, to the brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers who make up the working poor. Buy a copy to keep reading!
ABOUT THE BOOK Until the summer after my second year of college, I despised Charles Dickens. I couldn’t stomach his outdated witticisms and had no patience for his Gothic writing style. In high school, when my AP English teacher assigned A Tale of Two Cities, I read Chapters 1-10 and gave up. I could stand to fail an English test since it was my best subject. I couldn’t stand to spend one more second trudging through the doldrums of Charles Darnay’s self-righteousness and Sydney Carton’s unrequited sob-fest. Everything changed when I signed up for an annual week-long educational program called “Dickens Universe”. I was a literature major at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) and the completion of Dickens Universe, part of UCSC’s world-renowned Dickens Project, meant I’d receive a full quarter’s course credits in just one week. The incentive was greater than my distaste for Dickens, so I enrolled and bought a copy of that year’s featured novel: David Copperfield. My preconceptions about Charles Dickens began to melt away within minutes of my arrival on the first day. Dickens experts from 35 of the world’s top universities gathered beneath the redwood groves of the UCSC campus for lectures, study groups, and Victorian-style tea each day. MEET THE AUTHOR April graduated from University of California, Santa Cruz in 2011 with a BA degree in English literature and a minor in history focused on the Islamic world. A lifelong storyteller and working journalist based in Santa Cruz, CA, she is currently the senior contributing writer for Good Times Weekly, Santa Cruz County's largest print and online publication. April also works as a professional writer/editor. Her topics of interest range from arts and music to political and environmental pieces. She has always lived near the ocean and grew up surfing with her dad on the Central Coast of California. Her favorite outdoor hobbies include backpacking in the Sierra Nevadas, bicycling in the Bay Area, hiking through the redwoods of Northern CA, and she has recently taken up rock climbing. In addition to journalism and informational pieces, April writes creative prose and poetry that can be viewed, alongside a portfolio of her journalistic work, on her website: AprilMichelleShort.com. Among her favorite authors is Anais Nin, who said, “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account), or more commonly, David Copperfield, is Dickens’ eighth and perhaps most intimate novel. Originally published in 1850, the novel first appeared in serial form, or segments in the above-described “penny dreadfuls” a year previous to its compilation. David Copperfield closely follows events from Dickens’ own life, and many Dickens analysts believe the novel’s title character, David Copperfield, represents Charles Dickens himself. This would make David Copperfield a fictional biography of sorts. David Copperfield was Dickens’ first novel to be written in first-person point of view narration, and whether or not Copperfield is based on Dickens, the novel is certainly the most autobiographical of Dickens’ collection. The novel’s 1867 edition includes a preface by the author, in which he writes, “...like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield.” Buy a copy to keep reading!
ABOUT THE BOOK ‘Oliver Twist’ was a departure from the world that Dickens created when he wrote ‘The Pickwick Papers’, according to David Perdue’s Charles Dickens Home Page. Unlike other Victorian writers at the time, Dickens exposed the seamy side of England by writing about prostitutes and criminals. Characters such as John Dawkins a.k.a. The Artful Dodger, Fagin, Charley Bates and Nancy shocked readers. In fact, Nancy’s murder has been a source of contention for scholars and critics who felt like the scene was over-the-top, according to The Guardian. It was later discovered that Dickens used a real life account of a prostitutes murder to write the scene. Because of his early childhood experience at the workhouse, Dickens is able to paint a vivid picture in ‘Oliver Twist’ of the lower class and their grim conditions. In this world, every class has their own bad apples. The poor and middle class are not automatically dishonest and opportunistic. Those in power such as the Mr. Bumble and Monks are just as ruthless as Fagin. MEET THE AUTHOR Faith McGee is a writer from San Francisco. She writes articles, blogs, content for websites and fiction. Her portfolio may be viewed at http://faithmcgee.carbonmade.com/. EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK Oliver is sent to apprentice under an undertaker, Sowerberry. His experience at the undertaker’s house is dire and he fights with one of Sowerberry’s sons after his mother is called “a regular right-down bad ‘un”. To escape his poor treatment at the undertaker’s house, Oliver leaves to wander the streets. While meandering towards London, Oliver runs into a pickpocket, The Artful Dodger. Oliver’s innocence prevents him from reconizing the fact that he is being thrown into a criminal ring run by Fagin. Sent to out to “make handkerchiefs”, Oliver witnesses The Artful Dodger and his crony, Charley Bates, steal a handkerchief. Unfortunately, Oliver is suspected of the theft and taken to court by Mr. Brownlow. At the proceedings, a witness comes forward and clears Oliver of the crime. Oliver faints and Mr. Brownlow takes him home to nurse him back to health. Life in the Brownlow household is glorious for Oliver. He is fed other things besides gruel. Buy a copy to keep reading!
ABOUT THE BOOK I first read Great Expectations for a middle school English course. Often, I was one of the only kids in my class that would actually read the assigned title, and this book was no different. However, while I normally read the books compulsively and didn’t necessarily enjoy them, Great Expectations I truly did relish reading. I related strongly to Pip, the protagonist, who feels pressured by a mysterious benefactor to accomplish great things. Because of the faith of this benefactor and his quick rise from a poor working background, the young Pip often feels that he must be superior to his peers from more privileged backgrounds, which often provokes their resentment. The young me didn’t recognize the cause and effect of Pip’s behavior and the resulting abuse from the other kids, but I think one of the reasons I identified with him so strongly was my own failure to recognize the effect my attitude might have had on the way I was treated. Later in life, I read Great Expectations again. In this second reading I felt a strong kinship with the Pip character as an older man. Despite all of the support he received from his benefactor, he still ends up falling ill and deeply into debt and ultimately achieving a relatively mediocre life. I, too, came into illness and debt in my early twenties which slowed down my progress in life significantly. Pip’s attitude of superiority toward his peers and the expectation that he will be great falls short of reality. MEET THE AUTHOR Jean Asta is the owner of Asta Communications, a freelance communications company providing writing, editing, and training services for clients around the globe. She has a BA in English Literature and a Master's in Public Administration, both from the University of Georgia. EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK At the beginning of the tale Pip lives with his older sister and her husband, Joe Gargery, the blacksmith. Pip and Mrs. Joe lost their parents long ago, and we get the sense that Mrs. Joe has never really recovered from the tragedy. While Pip’s relationship with his ornery older sister is tenuous, Joe actually cares for him throughout the story as if he were his own son. On Christmas Eve, Pip encounters an escaped convict who manipulates him into helping him to escape from the authorities. The assistance forces Pip to be secretive with his family and to steal resources so that the convict can survive. Pip feels a great deal of guilt about this, especially because he mistakenly believes the convict was responsible for assaulting his sister, although it was actually Joe’s employee Orlick. Miss Havisham is a bitter old woman who lives in a house that she has kept frozen in time from the moment she was jilted at the altar. She stopped all the clocks at the instant of her jilting, has never removed her wedding dress, and left all the decorations and food set out for her wedding in place in Satis House, long since having rotted and molded. Miss Havisham is the caretaker of a pretty young girl named Estella... Buy a copy to keep reading!
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