I picked up The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova on a whim once upon a time, probably because it was cheap, and them, um, never got around to reading it. I cannot tell you how many times I have bought a big stack of books because they are all on sale and then only gotten through half of them before I got distracted or bought more/newer books and moved along to those. I have so many books that I haven't read, and I schlep them from apartment to apartment, and this is stupid and makes so sense. So! I picked up this book off the shelf and up and decided to read it.
First off, I did not realize this was a vampire book. I probably would not have bought it if I had realized that because, um, I don't do vampires. Just don't get the appeal. But, I'm stupid/don't read blurbs because I started in on this book just the same, only to realize about 50 pages in that hey, wait a minute, is this book about vampires? Really? How did I miss that? It was kind of interesting in a guilty fun way and it is a seriously fast read so I kept going. Kostova is a good writer, even if I wasn't crazy about the content.
The story goes something like this: there's a graduate student who finds a mysterious book with only one printed page in it on his desk in the library, tells his adviser about it (who ALSO got a book like this once upon a time oooh mysterious), and then whoa vampires biting you people disappearing in the night plus a little romance and a trip to Eastern Europe and Transylvania drama with real live vampires, etc. It was pretty predictable once I got about halfway through the book, which is no small tome. I think its about 700 pages of vampire-ness. I kind of skimmed large parts of the vampire-y/looking through archives for this one letter from this one person to this other person in 1499 parts of the book because that stuff doesn't really interest me. I liked the descriptions of the various European cities. Kostova paints a nice and vivid picture with words of places that I can only hope to visit.
I could have stopped reading the book at any time and been ok with that but I was at the boy's, he was doing homework and I needed something to read, and this was the only thing around that wasn't about physics. I recommend it if you like good writing and love vampire books. It is surely better than that Twilight crap. If vampires aren't your bag, skip it.
Next up: Hmmm, hard to tell. I have a ton of books out from the school and public library. I picked up A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. This looks a little floofy for my taste but it takes place at a boarding school in England. I totally love and romanticize the idea of going to a boarding school and I love books that take place at one (Harry Potter 1-6, Prep, A Separate Peace, etc. If you have more suggestions for books like this PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT THEM). This is the first in a trilogy so if I like it I have two more books to read. Hooray.
Also, about David Copperfield...well...I might continue to read it, I might not. I have a Thing against making myself finish books I'm not crazy about but Karl has been speaking so highly of this book, plus I loved Great Expectations, so, I might soldier on. Maybe.
