The Great American Read: Day 1 The Count of Monte Cristo

I have been completely inspired by The Great American Read program.  Sometimes as an avid reader I feel alone, but this has really brought me to my people.  I have joined the Facebook Book Club and have totally convinced my crazy self to try to read all 100 books.  There are exactly 100 days to September 1st, but I am not crazy enough to think I could read all 100 in so short a time (1 book a day is just a little TOO crazy).  But what I would like to try is to take a picture with each book as I collect or get them from the library.  While I am doing this I will also be reading as well.  I honestly don't know how this will affect my regular Popsugar Challenge.  But this is too good to pass up and it is an unexpected, unplanned awesome event that I don't want it to pass me by. 

For Day 1, and maybe my ultimate summer challenge, is to read The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.  I first knew about this story while I was young, but my first memory of it was watching the French miniseries in French class.  I love what I remembered about the story but the size of this book is enough to intimidate me.  It is just over 1400 pages.  The Bible is the only other book I have read of this length.  I, surprisingly enough, did find the time to rewatch the 2002 version of the movie.  It is pretty different from the book, but I love the actors from the movie so much that I don't think I can fault it very much for steering so off the plot.  Jim Caviezel (who plays Jesus in The Passion of the Christ) and a very young Henry Cavill (the newest Superman) are Edmond Dantes and Albert Mondego.  Any way, I know this is suppose to be about the books, but I may from time to time mention the movies, too. 

Here are the pictures:

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas





The Bookmark




The tiny dent I made- one quarter done/25%
I must add that there will be no specific order.  I am just going to do the best I can.  I have already read about 20 on the list (some so long ago I would like to at least skim over a few I know I have read before just to get an idea of the book). 

In an effort to get as much read over the past two days- I have been listening to the youtube librovox audio book while washing dishes and cross stitching.  I hauled this book to a Bible study and to the park so far.  This will be such an adventure!

As for the book itself.  I have been very much enjoying it.  I love Edmond Dantes.  I don't think Dumas spends a whole lot of time on character development but if he were alive now he would make a great soap opera writer.  I have read mixed reviews about the ending, but as that is probably pretty far off I won't worry about it.

Super excited for The Great American Read Summer!  I have no idea what is going to happen.  I have just been taken with this idea and I can't stop now.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mom's Reading Corner- brought to you by a tropical smoothie

Image
This week for the Popsugar Challenge I have finished Miss Spitfire: Reaching Helen Keller by Sarah Miller for the prompt "a book by or about a person with a disability".  I have wanted to read this book for awhile since I found it was an Oregon Battle of the Books books.  I have been a fan of The Miracle Worker and Helen Keller's life for a long time.  I love American Sign Language and was even privileged enough to work with a group of deaf children as a camp counselor for a week.  This was a great book from Annie Sullivan's perspective.  She does call Helen some names that would be greatly frowned upon today but knowing that this is from a different time and being sensitive to Annie's childhood I was not taken aback.  I enjoyed this book.  I was originally going to attempt two books this week but as soon as I started reading Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery I knew I wanted to savor that book.  Montgomery has such a way with words an...
Read more

The Great American Read: Day 49 War and Peace

Image
The unfortunate problem with doing a daily project such as this is that if you miss a few days they start piling up pretty fast and some books will not even get as much of a post as others especially incredibly long books such as War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.  This book is just about as long as The Count of Monte Cristo but seems a lot more intimidating almost solely because it is Russian.  My roommate in college read it and I should have given her more props for such an amazing accomplishment.  Any way this will be the second to last book I get to on The Great American Read List .  Here are a few things I watched to give me an idea about what I will be getting myself into in the far far future.  One of the lamest and biggest reasons I want to read War and Peace is because one of the translators is named Larissa.  It is too bad Larissa is such a popular Russian name and Russian literature is so daunting to me.  This is a library ...
Read more

The Great American Read: Day 14 The Da Vinci Code

Image
"Everyone loves a conspiracy."  Yes, I am part of that everyone.  I really do love conspiracies, secret societies, ghost stories, mysterious disappearances, and haunted houses...all that stuff.  I use to have a big series of Raintree books from the 1970s that dealt with all of those things.  I have searched in vain for a picture of these books and the closest I have come is this blog that only has the pictures of the creature books.  Still those books made a big impression on me.  I think about them whenever I want to think about leaving it all behind to go on a crazy adventure to discovery what is the secret of the Bermuda Triangle...and get famous....but honestly it is just a bunch of fun thoughts of a different life that I don't have.  No worries- I still just read about them and stay safe at home.  All that to say I have been reading The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.  It is fun stuff.  It is a little cheesy writing wise but I am to...
Read more