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Copy/paste the text below into your blog. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1953.A_Tale_of_Two_Cities?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="A Tale of Two Cities" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1159226755m/1953.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1953.A_Tale_of_Two_Cities?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">A Tale of Two Cities</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/239579.Charles_Dickens">Charles Dickens</a><br/><br/> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8738210?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a> rating: 5 of 5 stars<br/>This is the twenty-eighth book I read on my commute. A classic, a bonafide canonical capital-C Classic! <br/> <br/>I was an English major in college, mostly because English was my favorite subject in high school (certainly not because I thought majoring in English was a fantastic idea, post-college employment-wise). But I have a few guilty secrets as an English major, certain books I've never read and certain prejudices I harbor. And until I read this book I could offer up the following matched pair: I'd never read A Tale of Two Cities, and honestly I really didn't like Dickens all that much. <br/> <br/>I still don't like Dickens all that much, but now I can say that I've read A Tale of Two Cities, and I was pleasantly surprised by how easily I was drawn into it and ultimately blown away by how much I enjoyed it overall. The five stars I've given it are honestly reflective of my experience of reading it, not just homage to its exalted literary status. It's been observed (by people more expert on the subject than me) that Tale is the least Dickensian of Dickens novels, and I tend to believe that. What that means is that it lacks a lot of things that make me dislike Dickens - the slow pacing, the over-wordiness, the concern with matters I don't consider worth the concern. A Tale of Two Cities is, as the kids say, hella-tight. The plot is always on the move, the writing feels crisp, the concerns are as big as the sweep of history and the essentials of the human condition. Maybe I've gotten old enough now to appreciate Dickens a little more, but I think more of it has to do with this particular book. I wish it were A Tale of Two Cities I had to read multiple times on the way to getting my diplomas, instead of Great Expectations. <br/> <br/>Running total for types of books read on the commute: <br/> <br/>Classics: 2 <br/>Modern Lit: 9 <br/>Fantasy/sci-fi: 12 <br/>Non-fiction: 5 <br/> <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/329383?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>