Admittedly fairly obvious choices, but anyway:

 

1. Miss Marple -- who may or may not have cracked 70 at the beginning of the series (The Murder at the Vicarage, 1930) but is an elderly lady even then and must have been over 90 by the time the last book about her was published, some 46 years later (Sleeping Murder).

2. Allan Karlsson -- the eponymous protagonist of The Hundred-Year Old Man Who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared.

3. Little Nell's Grandfather in The Old Curiosity Shop.

 

Honorary mention:

 

Sherlock Holmes -- who has retired and is keeping bees in the South Downs in The Final Solution, which is set in 1944.

 

 

The Story of Tea is a beautiful piece of work, valuable to all tea lovers. Many gorgeous photographs suggest the cultivative art, while a strong discussion of production methods in various regions is the real heart of the book. For those interested in a description of production down to the village level, this is one of the few works that will provide it. This section is followed by a longish chapter called "Journeying along the tea trail," which is both meandering and somewhat redundant, while at the same time providing many interesting vignettes. By the finish of these two parts, the reader will have a decent knowledge of which regions produce the more famous teas, and why. With that said, I was disappointed by the rather spare, even perfunctory, history of tea, trade and the tea trade's role in the world economic system. As for the "drinking guide" section of the book, I much prefer the author's better known "The Tea Enthusiast's Handbook: A Guide to the World's Best Teas." Moreover, the structure of the book lends itself to overlap, leading to duplication of information. Even given these deficiencies, I consider The Story of Tea to be a must read for anyone seeking knowledge about the worlds most popular beverage. It remains the best single volume concerning all things tea-related.

The Old Curiosity Shop - Charles Dickens Review pending discussion. 3 1/2 stars really.

Has Dickens beaten the crap out of another character more than poor Little Nell?

Certainly Pip and Oliver get theirs. But at least with them there's some sort of happy ending or comeuppance for the villains. Like Little Dorrit without the uplifting ending, Little Nell just gets beat down. She gets taken advantage of time and again, and there is no redemption, not in my eyes. Sure, you could say that she gets to live out her miserable life in a better place than where she started, but then she immediately dies..

What was wrong with Dickens? Why did he like to make his characters, and thus us, suffer soooo much? Yes, pitting characters against trials is important to keep up the tension and keep the reader's eyes locked on the page, but this is different altogether. This isn't trial so much as just plain suffering, and so while it's a good read of sorts, I don't think it works on the whole.

Rating: 3.426813 stars

This is not actually the edition I have - mine is from the Penguin English library series designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith (link at the bottom).

 

I bought this book at Lutyens & Rubinstein Bookshop in London over the Christmas 2012 holiday. Erin, Kristin, and I went in to get away from the rain after a day of shopping in Notting Hill. (Mom was at the flat resting and actually ended up being rushed to the hospital just a few hours later.) A day or two before had been Boxing Day, and we'd gone on a walking tour of "Shakespeare & Dickens' London," so I was excited to read about Little Nell, imagining what it had been like to get one chapter at a time in America. 

 

Right before leaving for London, I happened to listen to an episode of the Infinite Monkey Cage (podcast) on statistics & probability (it's more interesting than it sounds). One of the discussion points was the six degress of separation theory, and the fact that the odds of knowing the same people as a stranger you just met are much higher than we expect. A panelist -- I think it was Mark Gatiss, but not sure -- pointed out that Dickens uses this in a lot of his stories. Without that running through my head, I might have found this particular story of his too much to buy - all the coincidence and connection that the story depends on.

 

Some of Dickens' comments on human nature in this book made me get out my pen to underline - which I never do. I also laughed out loud, cried a little once, and sighed in wonder at his brilliance constantly. Yes, the sentimentality for which it was always criticized is there, but if you have ever been poor and alone, you will recognize the portrayal of every tiny act of kindness or apathy as monumental. 

 

Shortly after I returned from London, I had the flu for a week, so I associate the book with comfort and warmth in the midst of misery and muddle-headedness. After that, it took me a while to finish because I had very little reading time. The last 300 pages or so were finished at the San Francisco Symphony over two weeks, in the space between work and chorus rehearsals/concerts.