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An interesting quote from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. What's your favorite floral fragrance? * #bookstagrammer #bookstagram #booknerd #booklover #booksofinstagram #instabooks #becauseofreading #bookadventure #favoritereads #floral_secrets #stopandsmelltheflowers #stopandsmelltheroses #20000leaguesunderthesea #classicliterature #bookquotes https://www.instagram.com/p/BzIgSgNgP5q/?igshid=fhm53lxkui1h

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Lucien Debray: Do you guys know where I can get those gold necklaces with the T's on them?

Franz d'Epinay: It's a cross.

Lucien Debray: Across from where?

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New Episode of Old Books Podcast is out. Give it a listen, let us know what you think!

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Get excited! Ep p4 - The Count of Monte Cristo pt 2 will be up this week! Tell us who your favorite character is! ' #thecountofmontecristo #countofmontecristo #alexandredumas #oldbookspodcast #podcastsaboutbooks #classicbooks #podcastsetup #podcastersofinstagram #booklover #instabooklovers #bookstagrammer #booksofinstagram #instaquote #waitandhope https://www.instagram.com/p/By0zsR3AEFJ/?igshid=1hxqs81ecsbpa

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Happy Saturday folks! We just shared a shirt teater for our next episode! Make sure you get caught up! * #countofmontecristo #thecountofmontecristo #alexandredumas #podcastsaboutbooks #podcastsetup #thecountisbatman #booklover #bookstagrammer #booksofinstagram #podcastersofinstagram #podcastteaser #newepisodescomingsoon #classicbooks #classicliterature #oldbooks #oldbookspodcast https://www.instagram.com/p/Byv_XhNgmJG/?igshid=1pjv2p2tab10t

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How beautiful it is! How beautiful!" exclaimed Conseil. "Yes," I said, "it's a wonderful sight. Isn't it Ned? "Hell, yes," riposted Land.  Channing our inner Conseil this evening, enjoying Dinos in the Dark at the Museum of Natural History. (at New York Museum of Natural History) https://www.instagram.com/p/ByquCygBD8s/?igshid=1ouvzpiw1743v

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Happy Sunday folks! The next episode of Old books Podcast is out now! We’re discussing the first 30 chapters of The Count of Monte Cristo ♥️ https://www.instagram.com/p/ByfqjLLAzf4/?igshid=x48zk26g7jp7

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Interesting!

“Another popular novel of the period begins in the same key year (of 1815). Its hero, Edmond Dantès, is incarcerated in the Château d'If in 1815, just when Valjean is released from Toulon. After extraordinary advenutres in an island prison and around the Mediterranean Sea, Dantès comes to Paris as the Count of Monte Cristo in the 1830s, just after the death of Valjean. The action of Les Miserables, from 1815 to 1835, fills the time that Monte Cristo spends in prison and on the high seas and stops at the point where the Parisian adventures of Dumas’ hero begin. Valjean and Dantès bookend each other, so to speak–and for good reason. The Count of Monte Cristo is a story of extravagant and spectacular revenge, but Les Miserables asks us to be kind. Dumas’ saga of daring survival fulfils a fantasy of avenging political and financial crimes. Hugo’s much more tightly wound plot is designed to promote and make manifest the possibility of reconciliation. Though the two authors were good friends and comrades in arms in the fight against the Second Empire, their most famous works of fiction express different moral perspectives and different kinds of hopes for the future of France.”

— David Bellos, The Novel of the Century

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okay so Count of Monte Cristo. I need to talk about the fact that this book is a) so much better than the movie oh my god, and b) fucking ridiculous. I’mma break it down.

it gets off to an IMMEDIATE hell of a start, like “meet Edmond Dantes. everyone likes him and he’s great. his life is about to be ruined!”

blah blah political maneuvering Dantes is a cinnamon roll who has never done anything wrong in his life, people are assholes, have fun in prison forever

this book can only work if you are absolutely 100% onboard with Edmond. building up the unfairness and injustice of it all is so crucial and Dumas does it well

at least at first

he kinda lost me a little while after he got out of jail. with “Sinbad the sailor” (?????????) and the creepy racism of having a mute African servant whose life he saved and is now utterly devoted to him forever even though the only reason he gives for not preventing him from getting his tongue cut out is “I wanted a mute servant.” why????? gross??????

I know Dumas was a POC. if anything that makes it even more uncomfortable. because  b r o.

also I’m not sure why we’re focusing on this random swanky rich dude and his friend and their ~~~struggles~~~~~~ getting a coach in Rome during carnival. poor little rich boy???

on the other hand

rich boy sees him at the opera and is like “I must find this strange pale man!!!!”

rich woman: “PLEASE DON’T HE LOOKS LIKE A VAMPIRE”

I am not kidding she genuinely thinks he is a vampire

Dumas please turn this book into a vampire book for a few chapters

please

I am begging you

we have already had so many genres in this book

for a while it was a devious conspiracy drama!!!

then it was political drama!!!

then it was prison escape!!

then it was shenanigans at sea with a band of smugglers!!

then DIGGING UP BURIED TREASURE!!! which was 100000% my favorite one to the surprise of no one

then it took a weird turn into an ~Arabian Nights legend~~~ fairy tale territory?? literally rich boy called himself Aladdin as an alias??? he woke up the next day and the secret cave had vanished????? I don’t know either???

oh but first he gets super fucking stoned and has a trippy wet dream about statues. I’m not kidding.

now we’re in Rome for Victorian rich people drama! rich boy’s rich friend CAN’T GET LAID and it’s the worst you guys

there was a random story about bandits! it was super disturbing and then weirdly heartwarming?????

what I’m saying is, we can totally do vampires for a bit. I don’t like vampires or vampire stories but it would be so incredible, Dumas I am begging you

I don’t really understand why we’re switching points of view, Edmond was the one he got me to like and now we’re like oh let’s focus on all these random other characters I just made up!!

but still. I’ll allow it. mostly.

follow your dreams. be like Melville. have one chapter randomly be a musical. this is so ridiculous and great. except for the gross weird parts, which are gross and weird.

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😂😂😂😂

Mercédès Herrera: Have we met before?

Count of Monte-Cristo:

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Looks about right

Edmond Dantes before betrayal and imprisonment (Chaldea Ace)

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🤔

10 Alternative Titles for The Picture of Dorian Gray:

• 101 Times Lord Henry Should Have Shut His Cynical Whore Mouth • I Kissed a Boy, and More Embarrassingly, My Own Portrait, and I Liked It • I’m a Murderer, but Everything is Perspective • Although I’m a Complete Wanker, I Am Infact a Victim of Suggestion Under the Influence of Another Complete Wanker • Narcissism and Consequences • If You’re Not Young and Pretty You May as Well Just Die • Personalities Don’t Seem So Ugly When Surrounded With Beautiful Things • Selling Your Soul for a Picture Probably Isn’t Worth It • Being Philosophical and Being Intelligent are Not Always the Same Things • It’s Okay to be Gay As Long As You Get Rid of the Body

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Alhough I'm a Ravenclaw I'm reading a Gryffindor book and thoroughly enjoying it!

Classic Book Recommendations For Each Hogwarts House

Gryffindor

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Henry V by William Shakespeare

Beowulf

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Histories by Herodatus

Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville

Hufflepuff

East of Eden by John Stenbeck

Othello by William Shakespeare

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

Love In the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

White Fang by Jack London

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Ravenclaw

Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Odyssey by Homer

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Slytherin

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Dracula by Bram Stoker