February 9: The Black Count by Tom Reiss

The author of the best-selling The Orientalist traces the story of the mixed-race swordsman and father of novelist Alexandre Dumas, discussing his rise to the French aristocracy, his military triumphs and the adventures that inspired such classics as The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo.

General Alex Dumas, is a man almost unknown today, yet his story is strikingly familiar—because his son, the novelist Alexandre Dumas, used his larger-than-life feats as inspiration for his classics.

But, hidden behind General Dumas's swashbuckling adventures was an even more incredible secret: he was the son of a black slave - who rose higher in the white world than any man of his race would before our own time.

Born in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), Alex Dumas made his way to Paris, where he rose to command armies at the height of the Revolution—until he met an implacable enemy he could not defeat.

TIME magazine called The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo "one of those quintessentially human stories of strength and courage that sheds light on the historical moment that made it possible." It is also a heartbreaking story of the enduring bonds of love between a father and son.

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