By Alice Northover
What do you read when struck down with a winter cold? Run back to the classics of Fitzgerald and Spielberg; learn from the ancients and panic about technology; and try not to look at things that make your eyes fall out.
In anticipation of the upcoming movie, the literary world is going Gatsby. First up, “Where Daisy Buchanan Lived.”
The University of Chicago received a package for Henry Walton Jones, Jr (Indiana Jones).
Portraits of literary greats.
Russian animated literature!
Cancer scientists take lessons from the ancient Greeks.
Music inspired by books. Next up band names inspired by books?
New technology + publishing = +1 on to do list.
Rachel Fershleiser of Tumblr on the Bookternet.
Bram Stoker and Walt Whitman were pen pals.
Articles for deletion on Wikipedia.
Beautiful bookbinding.
In defense of memes.
The antimonopolist history of the world’s most popular board game.
An online tutorial for medieval Latin.
Our most intriguing book review yet: “my big criticism with The Book of Marvels And Travels is that it’s not very good as a videogame. i found it extremely hard to manipulate the controls through the pulpy binding and the graphics are no good. i tried to visualise about what i was reading and then i started imagining a blue triangle moving through an endless purple void and when i woke up my pillow was gone.”
And finally Gatbsy!
Click here to view the embedded video.
Alice Northover joined Oxford University Press as Social Media Manager in January 2012. She is editor of the OUPblog, constant tweeter @OUPAcademic, daily Facebooker at Oxford Academic, and Google Plus updater of Oxford Academic, amongst other things. You can learn more about her bizarre habits on the blog.
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The post Friday procrastination: winter cold edition appeared first on OUPblog.
Bram Stoker’s 1897 Gothic shocker introduced Count Dracula to the world, an ancient creature bent on bringing his contagion to London, the very heart of the British Empire. As the horrifying story unfolds in the diaries and letters of young Jonathan Harker, Lucy, Mina, and Dr Seward, Dracula will be victorious unless his nemesis Professor Van Helsing can persuade them that monsters still lurk in the era of electric light.
The most famous of all vampire stories, Dracula is a mirror of its age, its underlying themes of race, religion, science, superstition, and sexuality never far from the surface. Below is a sequence of podcasts with Roger Luckhurst, who has edited a new edition of Dracula for Oxford World’s Classics, recorded by George Miller of Podularity.
- Vampire novels before Dracula
[See post to listen to audio]
- Why are vampires such mobile metaphors?
[See post to listen to audio]
- Roger Luckhurst explains that the Victorians thought very differently about blood.
[See post to listen to audio]
- Dracula was published in 1897, the same year as Oscar Wilde’s imprisonment and Freud coining the word ‘psychoanalysis’.
[See post to listen to audio]
- Thirty years on from the previous Oxford World’s Classics edition of Dracula what’s changed?
[See post to listen to audio]
- Finally, George Miller suggested that vampires are more multivalent monsters than zombies. Roger took issue with George’s denigration of zombies…
[See post to listen to audio]
Roger Luckhurst is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck, University of London. He has written extensively on nineteenth and twentieth century literature, and is the editor of Oxford World Classics editions of Dracula and Late Victorian Gothic Tales.
Listen to more Oxford World’s Classics audio guides
View more about this book on the 
Meg Cabot (of Princess Diaries fame) is the author of over twenty-five series and books for both adults and teens. Her most recent book is the paranormal romance Insatiable, a modern sequel to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Armed with the Oxford World Classics edition, she launched a Dracula reading group earlier this summer, and now–in an exclusive Q&A–shares her thoughts on all things vampire. Read on for the chance to test your Dracula knowledge and win prizes!
If you were bitten tomorrow, and had to choose a vampire name, what would it be?
Well, obviously, Meg Cadaver.
If someone attacked “Meg Cadaver” with a stake, and you only had Dracula to block the blow, would it work?
Absolutely. My super vampire strength, combined with the amazing power of Bram Stoker’s prose, would easily defeat their piddling human arm and wooden stake that was probably made by Ikea.
If Dracula had a Twitter handle, what would it be?
The possibilities are so endless . . .
Longinthetooth
Vampyvlad
Undeaddandy
CoffinCasanova
Although personally, I’d probably go with a simple 8U.
What is the most fascinating thing about vampires?
They never seem to die.
What is the most boring thing about vampires?
They never seem to die.
Who is the most ultimate, hard-core, awesome vampire of all time?
I feel compelled, because of the forum, to answer Dracula. But if you weren’t here I would answer Blade. I realize he’s a Daywalker, of course, but he has that awesome haircut.
Who is the sexiest vampire of all time?
Sadly for me it’s Michael Nourri circa 1979 as Dracula in “The Curse of Dracula” on the TV show “Cliffhangers,” which I wasn’t ever actually allowed to stay up to watch. Which is probably why, in my feverish imagination, it’s still the best. And now I never want to see it, as it could never live up to what I remember thinking, from the commercials: that it had to be the most fantastic show of all time. Considering it was canceled after only one season, I think this must be untrue. But you never know.
I’m upset that most modern vampires don’t wear cloaks. How do you feel about this?
I agree. In Insatiable, I gave my vampire a black Burberry trench coat, the tail of which flapped around a lot in the wind during moments of high tension, to give the impression of a cloak. But it’s definitely not the same thing. In my defense, the only way to give a vampire a cloak in a book set in modern times and not have him stand out like a big freak is to either make him be an eccentric bestselling author, have live him in the subway tunnels of NYC with the mole people, or have him work at a Medieval Times restaurant. None of these are particularly appealing options, especially the first.
