Hello and welcome to Story Time for Grownups.

I'm Faith Moore, and this season we're reading David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.

Each episode I'll read a few chapters 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, find a cozy chair, it's funny. I think I've said this before, and it's strange how this happens, but sometimes the things that are happening in the book somehow mirror things that are happening in real life.

I remember when we read Jane Eyre, a very first book, the seasons in the book were mirroring the seasons in real life.

And it was really cool and it was completely an accident.

And now, at least where I am, there's kind of like an inkling of spring

in the air. It's still cold, but the snow is starting to melt. It's warmer than it was. You

remember it was as cold as Antarctica, I told you, a while ago. And now it's not anymore. It's kind of like in the 40s and

things like that. And I'm looking at the weather and it seems like it's going to keep warming up.

And I just, spring is coming. I can feel it. And I'm really excited about it. This has been a long,

long winter and I'm so ready for spring. And at the same time, in the book, things are

getting so much better for Davy. It's like winter is over and spring is kind of unfurling in the

story metaphorically. And it's happening in real life too. And it's strange how often that

happens with the books that we're reading here. I don't know why that is, but it's really cool. It's a really cool feature. And I just wanted to share that with you. Also something I wanted to share with you is how far into the book we are. People have started to ask, you know, they know it's going to be a really long book, it's going to take us

through the summer, but, you know, how far are we? Which is a really great question, especially if you don't have a copy, you're not reading along, which I know many of you are just listening, and that's great. So I wanted to just share to kind of give you a little bit of a signpost or a mile marker. So there are 64 chapters, I believe, in this book.

And today we're going to be reading chapter 16, which if my math is correct, which is always

dubious, but I think that means we're pretty much exactly one quarter of the way through the

book, which is really cool and fun. So we're a quarter of the way through, and that means that, as I've said before, we're going to be reading this book through pretty much mid-August, and mid-August will probably be done, and then of course we'll have a conclusion episode and everything. So just, you know, as a marker, that's where we are, and I'll try to keep giving you little

signposts along the way so that you know how far we are. But you can also just sort of keep in mind that there are 64 chapters and also that will be done mid-August. So I hope that answers the questions of those of you who have been wondering. Okay, so as I say, today is going to be chapter 16. Last time we read chapter 15, this is a very long chapter.

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