The Historian
I am currently reading The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova . Not for school, but for pleasure. It is a reallly good read.
The NYTimes.com has the first chapter:
Read the NY Times Book Review
Scholarship Trumps the Stake in Pursuit of Dracula
Garlic and crucifixes are traditionally part of the arsenal for vanquishing vampires. But in “The Historian,” the Dracula-da Vinci Code hybrid that has emerged as the most heavily hyped novel of the summer, the first-time author Elizabeth Kostova tries a different tactic. Perhaps even the undead can be talked to death.
In a ponderous, many-layered book that is exquisitely versed in the art of stalling, Ms. Kostova steeps her readers in Dracula lore. She visits many libraries, monasteries, relics of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, crypts, restaurants, scholars and folk-song-singing peasants. Every now and then a mysterious pale, sinister figure will materialize, only to vanish bewilderingly. The book’s characters find this a lot more baffling than readers will.
