Revenge is a dish best served cold. mmmm... revenge.

I grew up in a very educated household. My father has a collection of classic literature that would make even the most well read person envious. Bed time stories were Mark Twain novels, and Louis Carroll stories, we didn't fall asleep to Dr. Seuss or My First Golden Books. Not that there is anything wrong with that, I'm simply illustrating that my entire life has been surrounded by classic literature. It is my passion. When I was fresh out of High School and still idealistic, I decided that I would become a Literature professor. Something went wrong along the way, but that's not important.

What is important is that from about the time I was 8 years old, my father told me that I needed to read The Count of Monte Cristo. I picked it up once or twice, looked at the number of pages and put it down. Why would I want to read a book about a bunch of guys in France? It looked big, it looked long, it looked boring. I much preferred Jules Verne, or H.G. Wells. After all, I was a little kid, what little kid doesn't want to read Around the World in 80 Days? (Small joke.)

Well, my dad bothered me about reading it for years. One day he just gave up. I never thought about it, until I was 14 and looking for something to read. I found The Count of Monte Cristo. It was Christmas vacation or something like that, so I figured I had a couple of weeks to kill on a book. I decided to give it a try.

I read all day, stayed up all night, and finished the book. I had never read a book like this. I immediately found my father the next morning to tell him about this incredible book I had just read. He rolled his eyes at me and said, "why do you think I've been trying to get you to read it for so many years?"

Well, without giving too much away about the plot (the less you know, the better) let me tell you what is so great about this book.

This is not a "Good guy/ Bad Guy" type story- all the characters are shades of gray. They are all capable of doing good or doing evil, and all of them do just that. There are no clear lines of moral right and wrong. It is very human, and just like humans, we don't always follow the path of truth and right.

The story is a rich tapestry (to be trite) of intricate detail. You never know exactly where the story is going or why it's going there. Occasionally you will find yourself wondering why what just happened did, but you will find out.

There is action, intrigue, love, betrayal, hate, revenge... and that's just in the first hundred pages. Having read my share of French literature, and Dumas specifically, this book is unusual in that the story doesn't lag ever. No undue time is spend on lengthy dialogue or character development of characters who will disappear in 20 pages. The dialogue is limited to what is important, the character development unfolds with the story and at times even seems minimal. At no point did I find myself thinking, "get on with it already." And that was with the first read. I own 3 copies of it now. One is so hammered that if I open it one more time, I believe all the pages will fall out.

There is a new movie adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo coming out soon. As with most other movie adaptations of great novels, I expect it to be an enormous let down, and therefore will not be seeing it. It is unfortunate how many people will probably see the movie, then pick up the book and be lost because its a different story. (Does anyone remember The Three Musketeers with Chris O'Donnel? I'm not sure which book they read to get that movie.)

Okay, big plug time: If you read one book (and avoid one movie) this year make it The Count of Monte Cristo.