"""Hey ChatGPT, I've heard you make a good book club partner. I've just read [Three Musketeers|Count of Monte Cristo] and want to have a discussion about it. Ask me what I think before you tell me what you think, let's go!"""

...I read both of the books recently and it was illuminating to be able to near-instantly explore avenues of insight/criticism of both of the books. Three Musketeers matches fairly closely to Wizard of Oz (vice versa actually), and Monte Cristo raises some really interesting questions if you view "The Count" as basically a fallen angel of divine justice (and the benefits/costs to him via that role).

Since my circle of IRL people who'd recently read both the unabridged books in the last month is infinitesimally small, it was one of my first "arms-length" test cases of "The GPT's" for fitness-for-purpose. I'm still a bit muddy on throwing a bunch of personal data and thoughts to remote servers (or becoming dependent on that interaction pattern), but digging in and analyzing old books was a great kindof gut-check and something I enjoy doing when finishing a book.

I know it's regurgitating a bunch of of reddit comments and academic books/papers (in Dumas's case), but overall- highly recommended!

Yes...clearly running to something that is "regurgitating a bunch of of reddit comments and academic books/papers" is much, much better than finding a couple of actual humans that read books, and then talking to them. Peak AI right there.