Book Club: Looking ahead to December

In a break from our usual pattern, we aren’t holding a poll to choose December’s book club choice. Instead, in December we will be reading a short seasonal classic — A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens (1843), which was suggested a long time ago by a forum member.

In parallel with that, we will also be starting a group read-along of another book by Dickens, Bleak House (1852-3), reading a few chapters per month at the same instalment rate as the original publication between March 1852 and September 1853. This means that by starting in December, we should complete the novel in June 2024, in bite-sized chunks of a few chapters per month. More on this later.

We’ll return to our normal polling approach next month, to choose what we’ll read in January.

As always, however, you are very welcome at any time to make suggestions for other books for us to read together — either reply to this message, or send me a PM. We’ll keep a list, and over the months ahead we’ll consider adding such suggestions to future book-choice polls.

When making a book suggestion, please remember that we will be reading books that are in the public domain in the UK and EU, where copyright laws protect work until 70 years after the author’s death.

All the best,
Astrid