The Edinboro Book Discussion Group will discuss Charles Dickens novel Hard Times, for their April 24th meeting.

2012 is the bicentennial year of the birth of Charles Dickens  and the Edinboro Book Discussion Group will celebrate by reading one of his books, Hard Times, for their April meeting.  It will be held on Tuesday, April 24, in Baron-Forness room 715 and will begin at 6:45 pm. Please come and share your thoughts about this classic novel.  All are invited.

Written deliberately to increase the circulation of Dickens’s weekly magazine, Household Words, Hard Times was a huge and instantaneous success upon publication in 1854. Yet this novel is not the cheerful celebration of Victorian life one might have expected from the beloved author of The Pickwick Papers and The Old Curiosity Shop. Compressed, stark, allegorical, it is a bitter exposé of capitalist exploitation during the industrial revolution–and a fierce denunciation of the philosophy of materialism, which threatens the human imagination in all times and places. With a typically unforgettable cast of characters–including the heartless fact-worshipper  Mr. Gradgrind, the warmly endearing Sissy Jupe, and the eternally noble Stephen Blackpool–Hard Times carries a uniquely powerful message and remains one of the most widely read of Dickens’s major novels. from Amazon.com