Happy Birthday, Charles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today just happens to be the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens, one of my favorite authors, who has been with me, one way or another, since early childhood. I won't repeat the famous "David Copperfield" story with Norma Brodsky, but rest assured they are inextricably linked.

Too bad I don't happen to be reading Dickens right now. I should have planned ahead. And Monsieur and I are looking for something Dickensian to do this eve; I hope some of the cable channels are showing some Dickens based movies. My choice would be the David Lean "Great Expectations"!!!!!!!!!!!

Ironically, were she alive, this would have been the 98th birthday of my father's sister, and sibling before him, Aunt Kathleen, whom we all called Katty. She was a living saint, darlings, and at the end she suffered from Alzheimer's, which my father maintained was due to her never reading. Katty kept abreast of things via newspapers, magazines, and television, but full length novels or non fiction books were not her thing. Besides, she was one of those people who could not sit still; she constantly had to be doing something, so she had neither the time nor temperament for serious reading.

As I have said to my father, Iris Murdoch disproves his theory. She was not only a reader, but wrote some of the most brilliant books, both fiction and philosophy, out there. Yet she succumbed to Alzheimer's.

Which I personally find very scary, so I am reading as much as I can now, because one never knows!!!!!!!!!!

But a Happy 200th to Charles Dickens. I will never forget, being in the Dickens Museum, in London, back in 2006, and seeing, encased in glass, all the issues of the magazine he used to serialize all his works in. I wanted to pull each one off the stuff, and read them serially, just as the original readers must have.

I wish you another 200 years, Charles. And, while we may not be here for you 400th birthday, I have no doubt your books will still be read then!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some Yorkshire Pudding to celebrate, dolls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!