It took a year and three months of on-and-off reading, but I’ve finally finished Bleak House, Charles Dickens’ tragicomedic tale of bittersweet lives and loves in a protracted court case whose legal costs ultimately outweigh the value of the assets in question. Some people die, some people marry, some people discover they are Lady Dedlock’s illegitimate daughter by a derelict ship captain who meets his unfortunate drug-induced end while transcribing court documents in a dingy apartment, a dark past discovered by an aloof lawyer who is later murdered by the crazed French maid who seeks revenge on her secretive mistress.

Afterward, I took a break from the heavy reading with a quick hop through Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama, which I finished in a couple of days. (Fulltext in Palm DOC .PDB format here.)

Now I can finally start on Piper’s exceedingly hedonistic Desiring God.