A Christmas Carol in Reading the Classics

Dec 10, 2012 Mturney1010 rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classic-books, top-recommended-books, religious, favorite-childhood-books

This book is absolute perfection. Wonderful, familiar story, sympathetic characters,superb writing, and the ability to affect the heart and mind deeply. There is a reason it is one of the most famous stories of all time. My dad started reading it to me when I turned seven and read it each year to me until I graduated from high school. As the years went on and my understanding grew the language grew smoother and the story flowed with ease. I've continued the tradition and read it to myself each y This book is absolute perfection. Wonderful, familiar story, sympathetic characters,superb writing, and the ability to affect the heart and mind deeply. There is a reason it is one of the most famous stories of all time. My dad started reading it to me when I turned seven and read it each year to me until I graduated from high school. As the years went on and my understanding grew the language grew smoother and the story flowed with ease. I've continued the tradition and read it to myself each year since, making this my 21st anniversary of the first time I read A Christmas Carol. I cry when I start to read it, I cry when I finish it...I cry several points in between. It speaks to me in a different way every year. This year I particularly marveled at the beautiful descriptions which include both flowery language and witty humor.

Some of my favorite quotes include:

"Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!" (seriously, best character description ever)

"Business!" cried the Ghost [of Marley], wringing his hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

"The misery with them all clearly was, that they sought to interfere for good in human matters and had lost the power forever."

“He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”

"It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that, while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor."

“He was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset”

"Scrooge was better than his word . . . . He became as good a friend, as good a master, as good a man as the good old City knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough in the good old world."

I love this book. I cannot say it enough. It brings me joy and it invites the spirit of Christmas every season. It makes me feel as Scrooge cried, “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!”

God bless us, everyone. ...more

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Jul 19, 2012 Kim Haring rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book gives hope that it is never too late in life for redemption. Who doesn't yearn to see a life of misery and selfishness come to know the satisfaction of selflessness and the joy of caring for others? What an ingenious manner of getting across this valuable point, Mr Dickens! ...more

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Dec 03, 2011 Carl rated it really liked it

Just short of amazing.

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Jul 28, 2008 Jessica Allen rated it liked it · review of another edition

I liked the book, but it was kind of slow to get into. It is short, so it is a good size to cary around with you and does not take that long to read. It is a little different than some of the movies. It tries to teach people to change for the better and to help other people.

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