"“Robert Louis Stevenson, you ruined my life!�
- the Angry Video Game Nerd

Just as all Western philosophy consists of a series of footnotes to Plato, all post-1883 pirate media consists of a series of footnotes to Treasure Island. The story is relatively straightforward and you can tell it was written for children, but it’s still pretty engaging and mature at points. The character of Long John Silver is of course a standout rogue. I’m sure if I had read this when I was like 13 I would have been obsessed."

"Les Miserables is a perfect book. Let me explain what I mean by that. In my view, a perfect book is consistent and passionate about its themes and delivers them with extraordinary prose. A perfect book need not be my favorite, nor do I have to enjoy every second of reading it. It should challenge as it enlightens.

Victor Hugo writes Les Mis with such certainty and such force that it is impossible not to get sucked into his vision of Paris, of France, of the entire universe. At its core, this is a novel about the French Revolutionary project and the values of liberalism and the Nation. It is also a book about human experience. For Hugo, God, the Nation, Man, Right, Reason, and the Revolution are all the same. He weaves these threads together so expertly that it makes perfect sense why a 100-page digression about Waterloo or the Paris sewer system is necessary to advance the plot. Every character in the novel, no matter how minor, is a statement about mankind; every flower or paving-stone has a lesson to teach the reader. Like with Moby Dick, the plot can often feel ancillary to the author’s greater vision. But whereas Melville writes with a shower-thought style, Hugo’s digressions are absolutely intentional and planned out to the letter.

Pro tip: listen to the audiobook when the plot starts to slow down. This is a 1500-page beast, and reading it isn’t always “fun.�"

Amelia J finished reading The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue