The Count of Monte Cristo

Edmond Dantès is a young man with everything—a woman who loves him, a career on board a worthy ship, and men who respect and admire him. Then he is falsely accused of treason and imprisoned, in isolation, in a fortress, without trial, and his life dramatically changes as everything is taken from him. It is three men who conspire to have Dantès disposed of, and it is against these three men that Dantès plots his revenge during the fourteen years he spends in prison, a revenge he feels that he will be unlikely to ever carry out. His life changes again when he comes to know the friar in the adjoining cell, Abbé Faria. It is this friar who teaches Dantès many important things and becomes a source of courage and wisdom amid the terrible life Dantès is living in the prison.

I've never felt 1100 pages turn so quickly as I have while reading this amazing story. Love, hatred, evil, goodness, revenge, forgiveness—it's all in this book. And the tale is still as fresh as if it was published last week.