As you know, this year marked the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens. When I reviewed The Dickens Dictionary this summer Delia (Postcards from Asia) had the wonderful idea to dedicate the last month of the year to Dickens and celebrate him in different ways. We decided we will read and review one or several of his novels in December, host a readalong and a watchalong and at least two giveaways. Because Christmas isn’t far, it seemed a good idea to choose  A Christmas Carol as our readalong title. It’s a short novel and online copies are available for free. The readalong will take place on Friday 21 December. We will send out questions one week in advance, you can either use those or just post a review.

The weekend of 14/15 December is dedicated to movies based on Dickens’ novels. You are free to choose whatever you like, just post your review either on Saturday or Sunday.

I hope that many will feel tempted to join us. I’m really looking forward to this. I had a list of authors I wanted to read for the first time this year and Dickens was one of them. I’ve only read A Christmas Carol so far. I decided that I will read Great Expectations and re-watch the movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow.

Here is the detailed program of the event

Book reviews – You can choose any Dickens book you like, even books inspired by his work like Lynn Shepherd’s Tom-All-Alone’s are an option. Non-fiction on Dickens is welcome too. We will collect and add all your reviews on a page dedicated to the event. Date: 1 December – end of month.

Watchalong: You can choose any movie based on a Dickens novel. Date: 9 – 15 December

Giveaway: There will be two giveaways during 16-21 December. One will be on this, the other one on Delia’s blog.

Readalong: We decided to read A Christmas Carol.  We will send a couple of questions to those who participate. If you don’t like that approach, just post a review or your impressions and join the discussion. Date: Friday 21 December

Wrap up post: At the end of the month, the event will be wrapped up and a post containing all the links of the participants will be posted on our blogs.

Please consider joining Delia and me.

Anyone who wants to join, please grab a badge and sign up in the comment form. Tell us whether you will also read along, so we can send you the questions. There is no need to tell us which books and movies you will choose but you can do so in an intro post.

I would like to thank Delia for the idea, for co-hosting and for the lovely badge which she has designed. The title of the event is inspired by Roof Beam Reader’s Austen in August.

Here is Delia’s intro post.