Many people are put off by the sheer length of Charles Dickens' novels. Great Expectations is one of the most accessible of his works. If you've been unwilling to try Dickens before, this is the place to start! In what may be Dickens's best novel, humble, orphaned Pip is apprenticed to the dirty work of the forge but...
"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and...