Hard Times by Charles Dickens

As I often do around the holiday season, I read another Dickens novel, this time his Hard Times.

It was enjoyable, but as I've previously written, none of his novels resonate for me at anywhere near the level of David Copperfield.  And that certainly remained the case with Hard Times.

Hard Times is perhaps his most socially-conscious novel (from an author with a lot of socially-conscious novels).  While the story takes place in a blue collar town filled with poverty stricken workers and their families, the central theme is that of living a left-brain life vs. a life that is balanced between left and right brain thinking.

In other words, life isn't just about numbers and facts.  It's also about feelings, thoughts, emotions and ideas.

That's what I took away from it, anyway.  Perhaps the book didn't jump out at me simply because I've always sought a balanced approach to life, including both left and right brain thinking.

Fortunately this is Dickens' shortest novel, so I breezed through it in the span of a few days.