Angie read and liked Jessica's review of Bleak House (Bantam Classics):

"Shivering in unheated gaslit quarters (Mrs. Winklebottom, my plump and inquisitive landlady, treats the heat as very dear, and my radiator, which clanks and hisses like the chained ghost of a boa constrictor when it is active, had not yet commenced t...more Shivering in unheated gaslit quarters (Mrs. Winklebottom, my plump and inquisitive landlady, treats the heat as very dear, and my radiator, which clanks and hisses like the chained ghost of a boa constrictor when it is active, had not yet commenced this stern and snowy morning), I threw down the volume I had been endeavoring to study; certainly I am not clever, neither am I intrepid nor duly digligent, as after several pages I found the cramped and tiny print an intolerable strain on my strabismic eyes. Straightening my bonnet, I passed outdoors into the frigid, sooty streets, where shoppers bustled by in a frenzy, now rushing into the 99-cent store, bedecked with PVC Santa Claus banners, now into Nelson's Xmas Shoppe, in search of glistening ornaments. Bowing my head perversely against busy crowds and fierce wind, I stepped into a subway, which conveyed me to a winding street down which I hurried until I reached a peculiar establishment, the shingle for which had been battered by the strain of city winters, by pollution, and no doubt by the small mischievious hands of vandals, who had modified the sign with their colorful signatures and illustrations, but upon which could still be read - with some effort - Amperthump & Hagglestern, Booksellers.

I entered to a sound of tinkling bells affixed to the heavy door, the hinges of which creaked as I propelled myself through its narrow passage. Proceeding forward, I heard a sullen voice squeak, "Check yer bag, miss?" and glanced up to see an urchin, nearly lost amidst piles of remaindered volumes, beckoning with one grubby hand while clutching a wrinkled comic in the other; I refused, smiling gently, and passed into the densely cluttered shop, where I was intercepted by Mr. Amperthump, the proprietor, a gentleman of about three and forty, whose thick-rimmed spectacles and corpulent physique recall two of a tragic trinity of dead singers, who upon seeing me took my cold hands in his ink-stained ones and kissed them. "How can I assist, my dear?" he boomed so loudly that a little one-eyed spaniel started from its slumber, and the urchins shelving books glared up at their master with undisguised annoyance.

Drawing out my small copy of Bleak House, which I had obtained from the Queens Public Library -- supported, to wonderous effect, by the subsciption of tax dollars, and no doubt supplemented by charitable impulses of certain gentleladies -- and endeavored to explain, as simply as I could, that I desired an edition of the same narrative writ larger and in more mercifully legible print. However Mr. Amperthump appeared distressed and could not remain silent long, flinging my book away. "NO!" he cried. "You are too young and pretty" (at this I blushed and tried to protest, for I am not pretty, in fact I am plain) "to be reading this antiquated rot! Here, instead, is the latest experimental fiction from Rajistan D. McGingerloop." At this he placed in my hands a queer volume, unlike any I had seen before. "Throughout his controversial career McGingerloop has exploded one by one conventions of the novel... in this latest work he has done away with pages!" And indeed, when I examined the book I discovered he was quite right, and that the book I held was a brick of paper, and could not be opened, having as he indicated, no pages at all. I thanked Mr. Amperthump for his solicitude, at which point he pressed that I try Petunia al Gonzalez-Mjobebe's story of a love affair between an Iranian transexual and a Chinese android, a meditation, Mr. Amperthump assured me, on globalization and identity, but also, he said, a suspenseful legal thriller in its own right, albeit one subverting the conventions of that genre - quite, he added, subversively. Finally I was given to understand that in addition to Mr. Amperthump's conviction that I should not be reading Dickens, he had none in stock, and finally I gave my thanks for all his kindness and passed out again into the filthy snow and gloom.(less) "