Wow. I'm sure I'm not the only one whose head was reeling during that great discussion of Revenge. Thanks to Kara for choosing such a meaty book. Thanks also go out to our newest member and Revenge expert Alex, a.k.a. Dark Past.

Moving on to future months, you can see by the tote board on the left that the upcoming moderators have chosen their books:

Andy has chosen Mysterious Skin by Scott Heim for this month. It's an emotional story of a young man's struggle to learn what happened to him during several hours of "lost" time from his childhood.

Kate's title for March is Shopgirl, Steve Martin's look at the life of a lonely woman who works behind the glove counter at Neiman Marcus.

Next, Mary Carmen's April selection is Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire and illustrated by Bill Sanderson. This retelling of the Cinderella story is set in 17th-century Holland.

I hope everyone is looking forward to the upcoming discussions.

Anyone ready to take on May? (You knew I was going to ask!)

As Rich said yesterday, "I've been a big Fry fan for a while, too, and I was fascinated at the things he revealed about himself by even being able to write Ned's years on The Island the way he did." I think this is exactly why I found this section of the book so interesting.

The pages describing Ned's 10-year solitary confinement, with only Rolf and Dr. Mallo to 'talk' to, were like a little peek into Ned's (or Fry's?) mind. His struggle to remember little details from his life like the name of the Von Trapp family or the capital of India -- such seemingly ordinary things -- became a frightening obsession for him. Fry's use of such trivial details was what made these pages so fascinating for me, as I would think these would be the things I might obsess about if I were in Ned's shoes.

And then Ned meets Babe, and its as if Ned is "reborn" in a sense. Babe takes the time to teach him new languages, new philosophies, and new ways to think. Through his education and his discussions with Babe, he becomes a different person than he was.

He slowly becomes overwhelmed by his desire for revenge. At one point Babe says to him, "I don't like to see you thrashing your engine like this. There is nowhere to take it. It can only burn you up." And it did indeed burn him up.

While I was glad at first when Ned escaped from the island and began to plot his revenge against Oliver, Ashley, Rufus, and Gordon, once he started to ruin his 4 foes, I didn't enjoy it. I didn't want him to end up with Portia by the end of the story (even in the middle, I was kind of hoping they would end up together), and I knew that the best thing for him was to return to the Island at the end.

Since I've never read the Dumas original of CoMC, I can't comment or compare. I've seen some of the film versions of the story (yes, I pictured Richard Harris as Babe), but I can't really remember how any of those mediocre movies ended...does Edmond return to his prison?

How did you feel about Ned's transformation on the Island? What did you think about his final decision to return?

Hi everyone. I'm happy to say that I really enjoyed reading Revenge this month -- especially after I read the other book that I had considered choosing for this month's discussion (The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay), which I was disappointed in.

I'll start off the discussion slowly (mostly because I have a day jam-packed with meetings -- sorry!) and hopefully speed things up as the week goes on.

To start, what did you think of Stephen Fry as an author?

I've been familiar with his work as an actor for years -- from work on TV in brilliant shows like Blackadder and Jeeves & Wooster, or his movie roles in films like Peter's Friends, Wilde, and Gosford Park.

Sometimes I think he's hilarious (Blackadder) and sometimes I find him very tiresome (Gosford Park), so I didn't really know what to expect...and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.

I read the British version of the book (titled The Stars' Tennis Balls), which had a few terms that confused me a bit (I don't know if they were changed to become less "British" in the American release), but other than that, I found the novel tough to put down. Even though I had a pretty good idea about how the book would end (I'll talk about its obvious similarity to The Count of Monte Cristo tomorrow), I still couldn't wait to see what/how Fry would do.

What did you think?

Would you read more of his work?

Wanted to catch everyone before your stack of unread books grows from the holiday season. I just finished January's book (Revenge) and really enjoyed it. So keep it at the top of the pile and join in the discussion. I for one am now very interested in grabbing Fry's earlier works.