Consider yourself included

7 February 2012 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens and all year long there will be events celebrating this wonderful author in the Dickens 2012 Festival.

Westminster Libraries, along with many other London libraries, will be focusing on City Read London in April 2012, when we hope to encourage as many people as possible to read the same book: Oliver Twist.
We’ll also be holding loads of events and activities for both children and adults, from book groups to dressing up, local history talks to storytimes.

But more of that next year.

If you want to get a head start, you can start reading Oliver Twist right now – borrow it from your library, read one page a day with the Turtle reader (it’ll take 173 days, so if you want to finish it by April you’ll have to double up on a few days), or pick up the whole thing online from Project Gutenburg. Let us know how you’re getting on by posting a comment on this blog .

3 December, is ‘Dickensian Christmas’ day on our Advent Calendar.
You’ll find lots more Dickens links there – including guinea pigs performing A Christmas Carol…