I read A Christmas Carol every year at Christmastime. It is currently my all-time favorite book. I know the story by heart – who doesn’t? Scrooge is nearly as synonymous with Christmas as Jesus Himself! The book is extremely readable and short enough that I would encourage everyone to make reading this book part of their holiday tradition.
A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings
Author: Charles Dickens
Introduction/Notes: Michael Slater
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback
Published: December 19, 1843
Publisher: Penguin Classics
View on Goodreads
Date Completed: December 24, 2024
My rating: 
Thoughts
I’m honestly not sure what to say about this book that people don’t already know. Charles Dickens was a very prolific writer in his time and was hugely popular. He wrote and published a Christmas story nearly every year during his career. But this one sticks out to me because of the redemption. And because the Muppets made a banger of a film adaptation!
My view of humanity as a whole can generally be described as dismal. We call ourselves intelligent creatures, but grab any newspaper and tell me exactly how intelligent we are.
But reading this book really does give me hope for people. I’m still pessimistic in my view of the world, but I do have hope that people can and will change. Scrooge is the embodiment of that hope.
It should come as no surprise that I have rated, and always will rate, this book as 5 out of 5 stars.
As a bit of a postscript, I’ll mention that most volumes of A Christmas Carol come with other Christmas stories included. The version I read this year is from Penguin Classics and includes “Christmas Festivities,” “The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton,” “A Christmas Episode from Master Humphrey’s Clock,” “The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain,” “A Christmas Tree,” “What Christmas Is, As We Grow Older,” and “The Seven Poor Travellers.” I generally liked these stories, however I won’t be reading them every year.
I also own and have read the Signet Classic edition, which includes “A Christmas Tree,” “A Christmas Dinner,” and “A Good-Humoured Christmas” (being chapters 28 and 29 from The Pickwick Papers). Many other editions also include “The Chimes” and “The Cricket on the Hearth,” although both of these are actually New Year’s stories.
