At Powell's, we feel the holidays are the perfect time to share our love of books with those close to us. For this special blog series, we reached out to authors featured in our Holiday Gift Guide to learn about their own experiences with book giving during this bountiful time of year. Today's featured giver [...]
At Powell's, our book buyers select all the new books in our vast inventory. If we need a book recommendation, we turn to our team of resident experts. Need a gift idea for a fan of vampire novels? Looking for a guide that will best demonstrate how to knit argyle socks? Need a book for [...]
At Powell's, our book buyers select all the new books in our vast inventory. If we need a book recommendation, we turn to our team of resident experts. Need a gift idea for a fan of vampire novels? Looking for a guide that will best demonstrate how to knit argyle socks? Need a book for [...]
The HistorianElizabeth Kostova
Wow, when I dared to open Blogger to post my review of Kostova's,
The Historian, it had been so long since I'd posted that Blogger had a new interface site. Yeesh. Leave cyberspace for a few months and it remodels entirely. I feel old.
But not as old as the villain in Kostova's book, Dracula. I've have this thing about Dracula since my graduate years back in Kiel, Germany (which predates the vampire fad by over a decade, which really dates me), when I first met the villain in Murnau's classic silent film,
Nosferatu: Eine Symfonie des Grauens.
Knowing my penchant for the Eastern European Undead, my best friend bought
The Historian for me two years ago, Pre-MFA. It sat waiting for me like its villain. I resisted for two years, toiling away at that blasted MFA. As soon as it was over, this was my reward - a really really really long read with lots of twisted plots and complicated storylines and intergenerational information sharing.
Not your basic five-character-chronicle.
Kostova's work bridges centuries, familial generations, multiple countries, you name it. She introduces so many characters I...well, I forgot one, a crucial one, when he reappeared at the end of the story, at the climax to be exact. I may need to work on my spatial reasoning for retaining complex, three-dimensional, non-kid stories.
I'd like to say there's a basic plot, but there are so many plots interwoven. Here's a go - Dracula's assassination...maybe.
If you like history, this story will pay out in spades. Kostova did an amazing amount of historical research to take her characters from the U.S. to England to Turkey, France, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Italy across centuries.
Like Stoker's version, this is predominantly a book of letters. That began to wear. Stoker's tale is about 200 p. long. Kostova's is 642. I had a hard time believing that the main character could read three hundred pages of her father's handwritten letters to her in one night. Plus, the form slowed down the pacing because it was a retelling within a retelling.
When the family (two of whom are Dracula's descendants) trying to kill Dracula finally catches him, his death is rather...well, quick. The resolution ultimately did not feel earned or catalytic. This may be because the story is just so long. Sheer length draws out the action and slows down tempo such that when the telling speeds up for the climax, it feels as though the author just wanted to get through it.
However, the history in this book makes it well worth the read. If you are a Dracula hobbyist, this book incorporates many of the legends about him across continents and cultures. And, Kostova can write. She does wonderful descriptive work. I want to visit Romania now!
For more great reads, hop over to
Barrie Summy's site. Happy Fall reading.
Michelle Aielli will now serve as d
irector of publicity at Little, Brown and Company. She joined the Hachette imprint in 2007 as senior publicist, working on a number of campaigns including Uwem Akpan’s Say You’re One of Them, Robert Wright’s Evolution of God, and Elizabeth Kostova’s The Swan Thieves,
In addition, Sabrina Callahan has been promoted to assistant director of publicity for James Patterson.
Here’s more about Callahan’s work with the mega-bestselling author: “she spearheaded all major publicity around Patterson publishing events, including the launch of the Michael Bennett series, his guest appearance on The Simpsons, his Guinness World Records induction, the celebration of his 20th anniversary with Little, Brown and Company, and all major media hits, including the front pages of both USA Today and the New York Times Magazine.”
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
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