Hello and welcome to the story time for grown-ups' Christmas Spectacular. I'm Faith Moore,

and for the month of December, we'll be reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Each

episode, I'll read one chapter from the book, pausing from time to time to give brief explanations,

so it's easier to follow along. It's like an audiobook with

built-in notes. So brew a pot of tea or a mug of hot chocolate, find a cozy chair, throw another log on the fire,

and settle in. It's story time. Hello, welcome back. I'm so excited to start reading this book with you today. I cannot tell you

how much I've been waiting for this. I've been sort of giddily anticipating this moment when we get to

come together to read this book, A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.

So this is episode two of the story time for grown-ups' Christmas Spectacular. If you missed

episode one, it's still there in your podcast feed. That was an introduction to a Christmas

Carol and Charles Dickens. I just gave a little bit of historical context and a little bit of

biographical information about Charles Dickens. Not too much. I just gave a little bit of historical context and a little bit of biographical information

about Charles Dickens. Not too much. I really think you can get bogged down in all of that stuff

and it can make you feel like you're supposed to be looking for all these kind of secret

hidden details that you didn't even know were there. And that's terrible. That is not how we're

supposed to be reading a book.

We are supposed to be dropping into this world that has been created for us, meeting these characters

that we wouldn't otherwise get to meet, and wandering around in this story together.

And that is what I hope that we're going to do.

I talked about this much more when we were

reading Jane Eyre because that was much more of a kind of metaphorical book with all these

kind of deep ideas going on. But even so, the only reason to analyze or talk about a book like

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