A Tale Of Two Cities, Four Month Read Along. (Title edited by MNHQ at request of OP)

[DesdamonasHandkerchief]

Welcome to a 6 month read along of Dicken’s 12th novel A Tale of Two Cities
We will be reading it using the following format, and discussing the chapters on the first day of the following month: (So January chapters discussed from 1st Feb onwards etc)

A Tale of Two Cities

6-Month Read-Along Calendar

Start: 1 January 2026
Finish: 30 June 2026

🗓️
JANUARY 2026

Book the First: Recalled to Life
(Chapters 1–7)

✔ Book the First complete

🗓️
FEBRUARY 2026

Book the Second: The Golden Thread
(Chapters 1–6)

🗓️
MARCH 2026

Book the Second: The Golden Thread
(Chapters 7–12)

✔ Midway through Book the Second

🗓️
APRIL 2026

Book the Second: The Golden Thread
(Chapters 13–18)

🗓️
MAY 2026

Book the Second: The Golden Thread
(Chapters 19–24)

✔ Book the Second complete

🗓️
JUNE 2026

Book the Third: The Track of a Storm
(Chapters 1–15)

✔ Novel complete

I know very little about this book other than its set in revolutionary Paris and London, let’s hope it’s a goodie!

Yes, great:)

Yes please @DesdamonasHandkerchief and thank you! September sounds good, we can have a breather first.

Sounds good, please count me in. I've read it before but so many decades ago I've forgotten all the side plots

That’s great @Scatterbugg, sounds like we’ve got at least a half dozen people who are up for it. Are you with us @InTheCludgie ?

Yes I'm in, I tried to read this years ago and gave up because something in it (which will remain nameless!) annoyed me but I'm going to give it another go

Was it the antisemitism? It should probably have a trigger warning for that. If not I hope you spill the beans as to what it was that annoyed you when we’re reading it!

Sorry, a bit late coming back to the chat. I really enjoyed the book. Thank you @DesdamonasHandkerchief for hosting and everyone else for their insightful comments. Nothing insightful from me!

I agree that Lucie doesn't seem worth the sacrifice as she is so earnestly dull - although full marks to her for standing outside the prison for hours each day. True loyalty. Mme Defarge and Miss Pross are much more interesting female characters - but as others have already noted of a lower class.

I have forgotten - did Sydney come to Paris to look for the Darnays? Or is his appearance another coincidence? I wonder what he would have done if they hadn't encountered Solomon Pross/Barsad....

Very much looking forward to the BBC adaptation.

Count me in for Oliver Twist - I have never read it but am fairly sure I have a copy..

Yes @TimeforaGandTSC had come to Paris expressly to deliver on his promise to sacrifice himself for Lucie, or those she loved 😢
Excellent news that you will join us for Oliver Twist 👍

I would like to join in with Oliver Twist too - it’s a good text to contrast with this one given it’s Dickens in his social crusader mode.

It’s also a significant text for me as it helped to put me off both Dickens and abridged texts. I first read it aged 8 (school reading text) and adored it - I then tried to reread it aged 13 or 14 and was very disappointed to discover there was a lot more book that I remembered and the language was much more challenging! I have reread it since, but will be good to revisit & discuss it!

Great @Benvenuto, my only reading of OT was, intermittently, an abridged version which I heard some of as a TA to Year 6 pupils. I thoroughly enjoyed it and said I’d read the unabridged book one day. Looks like that day may be coming!

You got it! I pretty much stopped dead at a certain point in the novel as it annoyed me so much. Was years ago though and I do want to read it properly so I'll just skim when I get to that bit again 🙈

My only knowledge of Oliver Twist is the 1970s musical. I think we did it at school. I can still remember most of the words to the songs.

Yes, I think everyone knows the plot because of the musical. I think Fagin was somewhat sanitised/softened in Oliver! but I remember Oliver Reed’s, Bill Sykes being terrifying to a young me! I hope Oliver in the book isn’t as wet as Oliver in the film!

I recall that Dickens edited the novel and removed some of the references to Fagin's Jewishness, due to people criticising the character in Dickens' own day. I'm sure that elements of anti-Semitism remain, however 😥

When my brother was little, he played the character of Oliver in a production of Oliver! I still remember the songs. I've never read the book, however.

I'd like to join the OT readalong as well please. The only Dickens I really know is A Tale.. and A Christmas Carol, although I did read a funny bit of the Pickwick Papers where Mr Pickwick falls into a pond.

Like PP I only know OT from the musical which is fab, although I think the book does feature some more amazing Dickensian coincidences. Ron Moody, who was Jewish, was initially uncomfortable playing Fagin because of the way the character was written by Dickens, and tried to make him as far removed from the version in the book as he could.

The more the merrier @SydneyCarton