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CAB - Costa's Audio Book end of the year feature 
Alexandre Dumas "The Count of Monte Cristo"
Plot outline by Auguste Maquet

Early 19th-century Europe, France.
Dantès the protagonist, a young sailor, is cruelly betrayed and wrongfully imprisoned.
Finally breaking free, he uses a hard-earned treasure to accelerate his plans for vengeance.
Re-entering Paris, he dazzles society with wealth and charm.
Weaving subtle schemes, he tests the morals of those around him.
New allies and rivals emerge, shaping the path of his journey.

Volume III Chapter 61,62,63
00:30 61 Monte Cristo visits a telegraph office, bribing the gardener-operator to send a false message to the ministry, causing Debray to mislead Madame Danglars. Her husband sells Spanish bonds at a loss.
19:05 62 Count's Auteuil house, transformed under Bertuccio’s design, receives nine guests. Danglars, sour from financial loss, probes the wealthy Cavalcantis. Bertuccio recognizes Madame Danglars, Villefort, and Andrea as Benedetto.
37:37 63 At dinner, Monte Cristo describes a murder in his house’s old bedroom, terrifying Villefort and Madame Danglars. He shows them the garden, revealing a buried infant’s remains, forcing the guilty pair into panic and secrecy.

Main Characters
Edmond Dantès / Count of Monte Cristo – Orchestrates the central schemes of justice and revenge, observing and manipulating events in Paris.
Gérard de Villefort – Ambitious royal prosecutor whose household intrigues and past actions against Dantès drive the main conflict in this volume.
Valentine de Villefort – Villefort’s virtuous daughter, central to the household subplot and the target of scheming characters.
Heloïse de Villefort – Villefort’s ruthless second wife, scheming to advance her own family’s interests and create tension in the household.
Noirtier de Villefort – Paralyzed father whose intellect and eye-based communication continue to influence decisions within the Villefort household.
Maximilien Morrel – Loyal suitor to Valentine, representing virtue and directly involved in protecting her and supporting the emotional core of the subplot.
Albert de Morcerf – Present in Paris, socially prominent, manipulated by Monte Cristo, and part of key social observations and schemes.
Bertuccio – Monte Cristo’s agent, whose knowledge of Villefort’s hidden crimes and investigative work enables parts of the revenge plot.

Costa's Wordbook
Aphis n an aphid, especially one of the genus Aphis (which includes the common greenfly and blackfly) 蚜 (Aey fis)
Jardinière - fr, planter
Petronius - a Roman courtier during the reign of Nero (r. 54–68). He is generally believed to be the author of the Satyricon, a satirical novel believed to have been written during the Neronian era
Jardin des Plantes - fr, Garden of Plants
Supernumerary adj extras (acting); not wanted or needed, redundant; n a supernumerary person or thing (super New mer ary)
Scourge n a person or thing that causes great trouble or suffering; a whip used as an instrument of punishment; v cause suffering to (Scur ch)
Le Messager - fr, The Messenger

Peristyle n a row of columns surrounding a space within a building such as a court or internal garden or edging a veranda or porch 柱庭 (Per ris style)
Hobbema - Meindert Hobbema, a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter known for his wooded scenes
Paul Potter - a Dutch painter who specialized in animals within landscapes, usually with a low vantage point
Mieris - a Dutch Golden Age genre and portrait painter. The leading member of a Leiden family of painters, his sons Jan and Willemand his grandson Frans van Mieris the Younger were also accomplished genre painters
Gerard Douw - Gerrit Dou, a Dutch Golden Age painter, whose small, highly polished paintings are typical of the Leiden fijnschilders. He specialised in genre scenes and is noted for his trompe-l'œil "niche" paintings and candlelit night-scenes with strong chiaroscuro. He was a student of Rembrandt.
Zurbarán - a Spanish painter, known primarily for his religious paintings depicting monks, nuns, and martyrs, and for his still-lifes. He gained the nickname "Spanish Caravaggio", owing to the forceful use of chiaroscuro (light and shade) in which he excelled.
Murillo - Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children.
Bourse n a stock market in a non-English-speaking country, especially France (Burrs)
Dissimulate v conceal or disguise (one's thoughts, feelings, or character)
Enceinte - fr, pregnant
Banquo - a Scottish general in Shakespeare's play Macbeth, who is initially an ally of Macbeth but is later murdered by him out of fear and paranoia (Bang kwoe)

Apicius - Marcus Gavius Apicius, a Roman gourmet who lived sometime in the 1st century CE during the reign of Tiberius, writes De re culinaria, a collection of Roman cookery recipes, which may have been compiled in the fifth century CE, or earlier.
Lorenzo de' Medici - an Italian statesman, the de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic, and the most powerful patron of Renaissance culture in Italy. He were said to drink liquors laced with gold leaf, powdered or flaked gold, believing it symbolized luxury, vitality, or even conferred health and longevity.
Superfluity n an unnecessarily or excessively large amount or number of something (super Flui ty)
Sterlet n a small sturgeon of the Danube basin and Caspian Sea area, farmed and commercially fished for its flesh and caviar 小鱘 (Stare let)
Lamprey n an eel-like aquatic jawless vertebrate that has a sucker mouth with horny teeth and a rasping tongue. The adult is often parasitic, attaching itself to other fish and sucking their blood 七鰓鰻 (Lam pree)
cupitor impossibilium - latin, a desirer (or lover) of the impossible
Pliny - Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus, 23–79 CE) was a Roman naturalist, author, and philosopher, best known for his massive encyclopedia Naturalis Historia (Natural History).
Mulus - latin, red mullet
Lucullus - a Roman general, consul, and politician during the late Roman Republic, best known for his military campaigns and legendary wealth, most famous for his extravagant lifestyle, particularly his feasts, which became a byword for luxury.
Promptitude n the quality of acting quickly and without delay (Promp ti tude)
Abbé de Ganges - refers to Henri de Ganges, one of the brothers of the Marquis de Ganges who, along with his brother the Chevalier, murdered their sister-in-law, the Marquise de Ganges, in 1667. The crime, which was sensational for its time and motive (to gain her large fortune), was famously fictionalized by the Marquis de Sade in his novel The Marquise de Ganges
mon Dieu! - fr, my god!
Plantain n a banana containing high levels of starch and little sugar, which is harvested green and widely used as a cooked vegetable in the tropics; a low-growing plant that typically has a rosette of leaves and a slender green flower spike, widely growing as a weed in lawns. 芭蕉 (Plan tin)

Coming Features
The Lottery (Horror), Metamorphosis (Absurd)

Complete Features
Songs of Dead Dreamer, Last Unicorn, Brothers Karamazov, Fellowship of the Ring, Winnie the Pooh, Jane Eyre, Angels & Demons, Perfume, Great Gatsby, Jekyll & Hyde, Maigret, 1984, Metamorphosis, Dracula, Don Quixote, Dorian Gray, Anne Frank, Lord of the Flies, Liar's Poker, Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie, Great Expectations

《讀你聽》里程碑 
2021: 0 太太陪同旁聽 全配樂 無剪接 附旁述 總結 文字大綱 不定時播出 
2022: 2.0 全配樂 DaVinci剪接 小字典 作品介紹 智能主持+插畫 文字大綱 定時播出 
2023: 2.1 DaVinci, Descript, CapCut, Suno 大綱+人物介紹+字典 每周播出 
2024: 2.2 初階電容咪 Audacity, ChatGPT注解+插畫 分秒顯示 一小時内容 

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