By Pentadact

BullDozers: 'Lolita' classified as 'erotica' --> boo.

Graham: Didn't you also read #28, Harry Potter?

Grill: I'm going to insist that my SAT score must be mammoth, as I've read so many of the books in the top part of the list. But, then, I'm addicted to books and I've read loads of them.

Zane sounds fascinating though. Anyone read / heard of it?

roBurky: Should there be a link with this?

Tom Camfield: Atlas Shrugged and The Alchemist are ranked 5th & 7th respectively. This *scientifically* proves students are morons. I am a student, I do not exclude myself from the implication of this assessment.

Jason L: No Count of Monte Cristo? No Ender's Game? You poor man!

Jason L: Hmm. Actually now that you mention it, it's probably over a decade since I last read COMC; it sort of got so firmly entrenched in my favourites that it didn't have to contend anymore. However, as I recall it a major appeal for me is that Dantes' 'revenge' consists entirely of carefully and starkly revealing his enemies' past and continuing wrongs to others. Their comeuppance is all wrought by their own shame or evil, a fair criminal justice system or the consequences of others' moral judgment. Basically, Batman's more vengeful than the Edmond Dantes I remember. I appear to have inadvertently set myself a reading assignment now.

As for at least the most recent film, I am pretty sure there is no big flashy sword fight anywhere in the book. I remember being mildly pissed that there was a big flashy swordfight, I remember being mildly pissed that the ending was opposite to or truncated from the book, and I remember being informed enough going in that I attached no importance to the film and remember only those two things.

Jason L: At the risk of going into everything there that I've read, one of the 'smartest' ones - Freakonomics - caught my eye on second reading. It's a hoot. Basically the coauthor is a real-life N|_|mb3rzz dude, except instead of chasing mad serial killbombers he e.g. constructs a filter for teachers who are fiddling their students' answers on standardised tests or proves sumo match fixing or (most controversially) explores the link between Roe v Wade and the crime rate. It's too short, but then at a thousand pages it would be too short for me. My mortal imagination cannot imagine you in particular disliking it.

Kieron Gillen: I beat you by 1. Crime and Punnishment's as high as I go. Read 10 in the top 20, mainly in the teens, which probably makes me tediously middlebrow.

KG

Tom Camfield: Returning to the topic almost by accident - during The Count of Monte Cristo he does start to think that his revenge may have gone a little too far on a number of occassions, and the book doesn't always take his side, so you might be conforted by that.

Dante: I've been stuck halfway through the Count of Monte Christo for nearly a year now, I really enjoyed the first half, but the Rome Carnival drags horribly.

Interestingly though it's not just a straight revenge story, the Count escapes to find those who wronged him are all wildly successful and those who stood by him are falling into poverty and despair. He then sets out to re-balance this not only by taking revenge on the evildoers, but also be rewarding the good guys which he does in exactly the same manipulative, Machiavellian way.

Tom Camfield: The introduction to my copy agrees that the Rome section drags horribly. I have been lucky enough to have nothing better to do for the past few weeks than read anything I can get my hands on, so I didn't really notice. Hurrah for me etc.