Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazella
I think I'll read Les Misérables. I've read what it's about and it sounds really good.
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Like Moby Dick, it does contain a lot of junk only very tenuously related to the narrative. If you're wanting to read it for the story then an abridged version is well worth considering.
There are so many stories with similarities to The Count of Monte Christo that it's difficult to know where to start. If the main thing you're after is a novel with lots of different feelings in it then I'd recommend:
1. Any of Peter F. Hamilton's longer stories. Although they're sold in two or three books they're actually single novels:
Night's Dawn (The Reality Dysfunction, Neutronium Alchemist, Naked God)
The Commonweath Saga (Pandora's Star & Judas unchained)
There's also the Void Triology (again, one novel) but it features many of the characters from the commonwealth saga, so probably better to read it afterwards.
Personally I preferred Night's Dawn, but The Commonwealth saga is slightly more grown up.
2. The Man who was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton. Admittedly it's one of those books best read aloud with all the appropriate funny voices (The BBC did an excellent reading by Geoffrey Palmer that occasionally gets rebroadcast on fourextra) but in a lot of ways it's similar to The Count of Monte Cristo.
3. Perdido Street Station or The Scar by China Mieville.
Not much in the way of actual plot twists admittedly, but there probably wasn't room in between all of the new ideas and the plots are otherwise full of menace and mystery.