[Book Review] A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol. Charles Dickens. HarperCollins (2013). 144 pages. 

It is such a heartwarming book. The plot is simple but so touching. The story is about a greedy, cold-hearted old man, Ebenezer Scrooge, who was a social outcast, and always refused to give others a hand. 

It began with the visit of a ghost, Scrooge's dead business partner. The ghost warned him that he would be haunted by three spirits of Christmas: Past, Present and Future. The spirit of Christmas Past showed Scrooge's memory how he gradually changed from a good-natured boy to that kind of man. It was 'time' that washed his kindness away and froze his heart into the block solid of ice. However, I could see his cold heart had slowly melted during the visit of three spirits.

This story made me think about when I was young, questioning myself if I have forgotten something important on the path of growing up. Along with this, it is beautifully written; it attracted me since the opening, bringing me to other Dickens' works.

This is one of my favorite character descriptions:

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas. 

[Book Haul] Big Bad Wolf 2017 on 11 - 27 August @Impact Muang Thong Thani, Bangkok

'I won't go to any book fairs until next year'

This had been in my thought before Big Bad Wolf being held.

Due to the fact that there has been a ton of book which I have not yet read in my house, I tried to avoid walking past the book stores or going to the book fairs. However, on Facebook, there was some of my friends posting pictures of book fair event called 'Big Bad Wolf', which had 60%- 80% discount. That when I couldn't wait any longer!!

On Aug 25, 2017, I finally went to this event. As soon as I entered the event's hall, a smell of books came to my nose. THAT WAS SO GOOD! I always love that smell. Various kinds of English books were there, many of which were fables and pop-up books for children.

I felt that there was not enough young adult fictions, besides that, some books were not in their genre's zone, but were placed in random instead, which was difficult for me to find them; yet, I had to tell myself not to hypnotically spend all of my money on that event.

This is the books I bought from Big Bad Wolf 2017

The collection book of Oscar Wilde's short stories (the last one in above picture) was the first one I bought that day though I used to read some of his stories, such as 'The Canterville Ghost' before. I really fascinate with his style of writing, so I couldn't let it go.

As for a set of 'Maze Runner', I had to spend more than an hour finding all books in this series since each was placed in random, but finally I got them.

'My Heart Is Like A Singing Bird' is such a beautiful title of this adult coloring book. It caught my eyes when I wandered around the art zone. It has a small size, and the pictures inside the book look cute and easy.  The most interesting thing of this book is there being some beautiful quotes in each page.  

I walked past the comic zone a hundred times, thinking if I would buy some superhero comics or not. Because of the high prices, I rarely buy graphic books. But it seemed like those books beckoned me to them. Their cheaper price made my heart sway, and I took them home with me at the end.  

After being back home, I found myself really want to go to this book fair again. It is great to find numerous interesting books with lower prices like that event.

I will look forward to Big Bad Wolf sales next year!!