I am in fact still among the living.

What would it be like to be the sort of person who blogs every day? Or nearly every day. Or even, at this point, once a week? But don't worry -- I have an actual, semi-entertaining entry planned, reviewing a bunch of Inspector Lynley novels. Once I finish reading The Count of Monte Cristo. Which has somehow managed to take over my life the last several days. It's so long! And I just haven't had the kind of time I usually have to really sit down with it and read a ton all in one stretch. It's an awesome book -- I can't believe I've gotten all the way to 40 without ever having read it. But whatever -- I'm nearly finished and thus won't be deficient any longer.

And by the way? Totally different than that cheesey movie with Jim Caviezel -- which, don't get me wrong, I love wholeheartedly and will watch every single time it's on cable even though I actually own the DVD. But it should be called The Count of Monte Cristo, loosely inspired by the awesome novel of the same name. I totally picture the count with Jim Caviezel's face, but everything else in the story is pretty much... different. Yet another example of a book where I'm glad I saw the movie first, because otherwise the movie would have just angered me in all that it left out. And this is a situation where what they did instead didn't really improve upon the narrative -- the filmmakers actually just kind of made up a fan fiction ending and left it at that. Which is fine for fanfic, but not so much for movies. But I guess they just assumed that no one going to movies in 2002 had ever read the book...

Also? I'm really glad I got a Kindle and read this book on it, because the actual book is over 1200 pages long, and I have carpal tunnel syndrome something fierce, in addition to cysts on both wrists. I would have been even more miserable than I already am if I'd tried to hold that book for the 7 evenings it's taken me to read it.

Also? (And this is what I get for ever doing ANYthing on Facebook...) I posted that I was "Currently Reading" this book in my Facebook library thing, and it brought up some user reviews. And this one halfwit was going on and on about how cliched she found all the "revenge stuff." And said that "it just got really old after a while, and it's been done so many times." And I find that hysterical on so many levels, because this is actually the book that wrote the book on revenge fantasies. So if you're reading the first major work of literature to explore in depth a revenge plot, you can't call it cliched. You just can't. You have to actually put the book into context; you have to do a little work. You have to. Because otherwise, people like me will call you a halfwit. And mean it.

So yeah. I'll be back soon with an actual post, and you might even see me on Facebook again this weekend.