I really enjoyed this tale of adventure in a literally globe-trotting journey. It is quite a bit of fun waiting to see if Fogg will remain inperturbable, and how many misadventures poor Passepartout will endure. A classic, and for good reason!

I am so glad that I finally understand the joy of reading Austen. When I was younger (and oh so foolish) I tried to read some Austen, but it was so stuffy and pompous that I could not get into it. Thankfully I had my eyes (er, ears?) opened up when hearing the audio version of Pride &amp; Prejudice. She was writing with tongue firmly in cheek!, I now comprehended. The pomposity was part of the joke, the appeal in laughing at the characters, not in agreeing with them. What a revelation.<br/><br/>Emma is an enjoyable read, but it is not up to the same elegance and perfection as the ultimate classic Austens, Pride &amp; Prejudice and Sense &amp; Sensibility. However, you will still enjoy the foolish pride and insensibility of the title character, cringe as she puts her foot wrong, and smile at the inevitable conclusions.

It took me a year to finish this book – yes, even with dailylit! The beginning was interesting, the ending satisfying, but the middle was full of seemingly unrelated stories. I'm not sure if it’s an artefact of the way I read, but when the Count got to Paris to start his revenge in earnest, I got confused over who was who and which person belonged with which reward/punishment. With the French names, the multiple generations and the addition of people going around with multipleidentities and trying to scam different people, I was just reading along and hoping it would sort itself out. It does. The reader gets to ride along with the sheer audacity of the Count. I believe things would have worked out quite differently for our eponymous character in a modern novel.<br/><br/>While I'm not sure about the book's final message and the slight ambiguity whether we should go out and seek our own revenge or leave it to fate, I did enjoy this book. I'm glad I didn't give up before finishing it.