I may have mentioned before, I have a problem. I find it very hard to not buy new editions of A Christmas Carol that I find. Mostly, I resist, but occasionally I encounter one that I simply can’t resist.

This new illustrated edition from P.J.Lynch is beautiful. The illustrations span a number of styles. Some are in the style of the originals, and some are unique to Mr. Lynch. Many of the illustrations span both pages, as background to the text. All are beautiful and show an understanding of the text.

I particularly like the picture of the uncountable children and the christmas present delivery man, complete with the baby and her toy frying pan.

Yes, it’s #27. But, honestly, I can quit any time I want to.

My sister passed on to me this poem by Billy Collins, the poet laureate. It’s *brillliant*, I tell you! At last, someone else who agrees with me that Anna Karenina is unmitigated drivel.

On Closing Anna Karenina, by Billy Collins

I must have started reading this monster
a decade before Tolstoy was born
but the vodka and the suicide are behind me now,
all the winter farms, ice-skating and horsemanship.

It consumed so many evenings and afternoons,
I thought a Russian official would appear
to slip a medal over my lowered head
when I reached the last page.

But I found there only the last word,
a useless looking thing, stalled there,
ending its sentence and the whole book at once.

With no more plot to nudge along and nothing
to unfold, it is the only word with no future.

It stares into space and chants its own name
as a traveler whose road has just vanished
might stare into the dark, vacant fields ahead,
knowing he cannot go forward, cannot go back.

This evening at JoeBeth I found a book entitled “1001 Books You Must Read before You Die.” Well, I wasn’t about to spend $50 on a list of books, so I came home and found the list online.

I find it a little suspect that they have 69 books from 2000 and later, but only 13 books from the 1700s and earlier. Oh, well, I’m a sucker for this sort of list anyway, so I’ll probably at least read through the list and see if I get any ideas of stuff I want to read.

The book Oliver Twist has been made into 27 movies. Very few of them are worth watching. Over the last several days, I’ve been watching the new one (2005) starring Ben Kingsley.

A great trend that I’ve seen in recent movies of classic books is that they actually follow the story line, rather than ad libbing. this rendition of Oliver Twist follows this new trend, and does a very accurate portrayal of the story as I remember it. It necessarily skimps on a few of the details, but is still very true to the original. And Kingsley is, as always, fantastic.

I recently finished listening to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, from Librivox. It was far better than other things I’ve tried to listen to from there for one simple reason. One person recorded the entire thing. With all the others I’ve listened to, every chapter was a different voice, which was hugely distracting.

Also very distracting is that every chapter begins with “This is a librivox recording. All librivox recordings are in the public domain. Blah blah blah. Blah blah.” This goes on for roughly 20 seconds at the beginning of every chapter. It is an unwelcome interruption.

But this one was pretty good. The reader had an annoying habit of mumbling over norman (french) names that he didn’t know how to pronounce. And he frequently butchered English coloquiallisms, too. The bulk of the reading, however, was really very good, and conveyed this great story very effectively.

The biggest thing lacking with Librivox at the moment is their selection, which is very sparse. But they’ll get there eventually.