Coal Miner's Holiday: Stories Book

Okay, so this is the 1853 version of The Wire. But with less gay sex. And no swearing. And very few mentions of drugs. And only one black person, I think, maybe not even one. And of course it's in London, not Baltimore. But other than that, it's the same.

Pound for pound, this is Dickens' best novel, and of course, that is saying a great deal. I've nearly read all of them so you may take my word. Have I ever written a review which was anything less than 101% reliable, honest and straightforward? Well, there you are then.

Bleak House gives some people a leetle problem insofar as you have half of it narrated by Esther (Goody Three Shoes, too good for just two) Summerson, who you ache to have a few bad things happen to, because she trills, she sings, she sees the best in everyone, tra la la, tweedly dee dee. This does get on some people's nerves. But I downloaded a dvd called Dickens Girls Gone Wild last week and let me tell you there's a whole other side to Esther Summerson - given the right surroundings (I think it was Malta, and the sangria was flowing) she could be good company.

However. Bleak House as a whole does no more than take it upon itself to explain how society works. And it's utterly gobsmacking. There are a lot of words in Bleak House's 890 pages but gobsmacking is not one of them. It's a word that was invented to describe Dickens novels.