This is Tessa's favorite. The book that Will grew to love. It must have something special.

My primary goal when I'm teaching A Tale of Two Cities to my sophomores is to make them realize that Charles Dickens didn't write creaky, dusty long novels that teachers embraced as a twisted rite of passage for teenagers. Instead, I want them them to understand why Dickens was one of the most popular writers in England and America during his time. I want them to see the book as the suspenseful, comedic, and sentimental piece of entertainment that it is. Because, while A Tale of Two Cities is ma...

(Book 883 from 1001 books) - A Tale of Two Cities, Charles DickensA Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a historical novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris and his release to life in London with his daughter Lucie, whom he had never met. Lucie's marriage and the collision between her beloved husband and the people who caused her father's impr...

Charles Dickens is a demanding writer. The narratives of Great Expectations and Oliver Twist are relaxed and simple when compared to this. Reading Dickens requires concentration, and a will to carry on when sometimes the writing gives you a headache. This is a historical novel. Dickens tells the story of the storming of the Bastille, some fifty years after it happened. Unlike most of his work, all traces of humour are removed. There are no caricatures and quirkiness within his writing. This i...

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness ... it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair”So begins A Tale of Two Cities, a perennial favourite. It was an instant success when it was first published, and its popularity has remained steady ever since, as one of the best selling novels of all time. For many, it is their most loved novel by Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities is Dickens’s second shortest completed nov...

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities is one of the most famous books, where Dickens shows humans at their best and their worst. But Dickens' descriptive writing was difficult for me. And for this reason, I could not connect myself to the characters much. Surely, I shall give some more time to this book later. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incre...

"A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!" It has been quite some time since I’...

DNF at page 150Well, I can't believe I am abandoning a Charles Dickens novel but I do not want to go on. It is so different from the other two works that I've read by him and loved. I don't know, I don't like the tone of the story(it might be the translation), cannot connect with the characters and I just don't like it. I thought that something is wrong with me but my mum saw the book on my shelf Today and she confessed that it was the only Dickens she could not read...and my mum finished everyt...

Years of teaching this novel to teenagers never dimmed my thrill in reading it — if anything, I grew to love it more every time I watched kids gasp aloud at the revelations! Critics are divided on its place in the Dickens canon, but the ones who think it an inferior work are simply deranged. It has everything: dark deeds, revolution, madness, love, thwarted love, forgiveness, revenge, and a stunning act of self-sacrifice. And melodrama! Oh, how Dickens loved melodrama, but in A Tale of Two Citie...

Hundreds, thousands of stories long to have a quotable verse, just one. Tale of Two Cities, Dickens masterpiece as far as I'm concerned, is bookended by two of the most recognizable quotes in all of English language. This is also the darkest story I have read of his, and no doubt, it's about the bloody French Revolution and Dickens spares none of his acerbic wit to demonize what was rightly demonic. Yet, to his credit and genius, neither does he sugar coat the great social injustices that led ir...

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.”Another classic down! The copy of this book that I read I have owned since middle...

Most satisfying ending in the English language. Yes, the last line is a classic ("It is a far, far better thing ..."), concluding, in astonishingly concise language (for Dickens), the peace and redemption of the story's most poignant romantic hero. But this novel delivers such a gratifying experience because there are, in fact, many characters who cover significant emotional ground in their journey to love one woman as best they can. Lucie's father battles his way back from madness under the gen...

Excuse me while I'm CRYING over this MASTERPIECE.[I know I promised a review, but the truth is, I am at loss for words. Who am I to talk about Dickens? Who am I to talk about a gut-wrenching, brilliant story that brings out the magnitude of human nature? A Tale of Two Cities haunts me. Follows me everywhere. And I have to thank Will Herondale and Tessa Gray for cultivating the need to read it.]

Dickens classic classic (purposefully repeated) tale centred around an English domiciled French family during the French Revolution in which he draws the love of his main female protagonist as the catalyst that beckons her suitors page by page to the blood splattered streets of Paris. The better of his his historical dramas, with one of the most famous opening lines ever written. 6 out of 12.2009 read

Alright, I've mentioned before that I majored in English in college. If you've been following my reviews you'll notice that I've been knocking off a lot of classics that I missed out on in that time. Now here it is, my big dark secret… I've never read a proper Dickens novel. Prior to this I've only read some of his short stories and A Christmas Carol.Well, it's been corrected! I've finally read a Dickens novel! Huzzah! Hooray! I went with the one it seems like… well, everyone has read.Okay, so y...

Some how my review of this got deleted which is good because I think after sitting a while I can appreciate the book more. When I read it it was confusing and slow and then towards the end really picked up and I was kind of disoriented but it gives a really good view into things in the period before the French Revolution. Learning about it was one thing but reading this made me very sympathetic of the peasants and angry on thier behalf, honestly surprised they didn't start rioting sooner.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...". The opening line says all that is needed to be said about the book. The time was worst, for it was tainted with hatred, violence, and vengeance. The time was also the best because there were love and compassion which endured it all. The only historical novel that I've read of Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities moved me like none other. I can still feel the effect of the suspense and tension even when writing the review a few days l

A KNIT OF TWO TALES Reading Dickens’s approach to historical fiction, at first I could not help but remember Romola, which I read recently. And even if Romola seemed to have more of a Victorian than a Florentine Renaissance tone, the story and the context were very nicely woven together. While with A Tale I felt I as reading two separate stories. One was a the result of conscientious research, and Dickens in his Preface acknowledges Carlyle’s wonderful book, and the other was a more melodrama

”It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”It rarely happens that a quote from a book haunts me but this one, well, this one does. I finished “A Tale of Two Cities” about two weeks ago, yet I’m still not over the ending. But how could I? After all, this is one of those rare books that keep you thinking even after you finished the last page and already closed the cover of the book. The most intriguing thing ab...

Instead of trying out new plots and ideas, Dickens keeps focusing on his main premises, recycling himself a bit and especially losing control over the inner logic, coherency, and credibility, not ever to talk about suspension of disbelief, because this thing feels so constructed. Not bad, but one of his weaker works, it reminds me a bit of certain behemoth company always following the same scheme, adoring the running system, never changing much if it brings sweet money money. I do appreciate any...