This is to replace the copy that I lent to a friend who has since gone off to school.

Amazon Review:

If your pulse flutters at the thought of castle ruins and descents into crypts by moonlight, you will savor every creepy page of Elizabeth Kostova's long but beautifully structured thriller The Historian. The story opens in Amsterdam in 1972, when a teenage girl discovers a medieval book and a cache of yellowed letters in her diplomat father's library. The pages of the book are empty except for a woodcut of a dragon. The letters are addressed to: "My dear and unfortunate successor." When the girl confronts her father, he reluctantly confesses an unsettling story: his involvement, twenty years earlier, in a search for his graduate school mentor, who disappeared from his office only moments after confiding to Paul his certainty that Dracula--Vlad the Impaler, an inventively cruel ruler of Wallachia in the mid-15th century--was still alive. The story turns out to concern our narrator directly because Paul's collaborator in the search was a fellow student named Helen Rossi (the unacknowledged daughter of his mentor) and our narrator's long-dead mother, about whom she knows almost nothing. And then her father, leaving just a note, disappears also.

I list my bookrings at The Bookring Directory!

Starting a bookray for this book. Please PM me if interested. Bookray will remain open until last person has the book.

Participants so far:
~ladybug74 (US only)
~cyber-librarian (US - US or CAN only)
~NMReader (US only)
~Heartthumper (US - INT)
~Haugtussa (EUR - INT)
~xtrdnry <-- Here(Aus only)
~fairy-whispers (Aus only)
~Lisagt (Aus pref., INT if needed)
~cordelia-anne


Note: Order is subject to change based on shipping preferences and others joining the bookray.

How the bookray works:
* Someone will PM you for your address, PM them back and provide your address
* When you receive the book, please make a journal entry letting everyone know that you received it
* Put the book at the top of your TBR pile (under other rings/rays that arrived first)
* Read the book (take your time and enjoy the book, don't feel rushed to finish it but try to pass it on within a couple of months - others are waiting!)
* When the end is in sight, check the book's journal and PM the next person to get their address
* Finish the book, make another journal entry and let everyone know what you thought of the book
* Send the book to the next person on the list (please use the cheapest shipping method available), make release notes (Controlled Release) or journal entry to let everyone know that it's in the mail
* END OF THE RAY, The last person on the ray could try and continue the ray or just give/mail the book to someone else who might like to read it, perhaps a RABCK - look at wish lists, or release it into the wild.

Please feel free to PM me at any time with questions

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

The Ray has begun, yay!

Oooh! I'm excited to be first for the bookray! Thanks kaila-ann for sharing it!

This was a long book--909 pages! I enjoyed most of this book, but it did get a bit boring at times when history was discussed a bit too much for my taste. Even when I got to one of those dreaded spots, I had to keep reading because I was hooked and wanted to see how it ended.

I already have cyber-librarian's address, so I should get this out in tomorrow's mail.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

mailing to Cyber-librarian, the next bookring participant

I received this book from ladybug74 in AL ... as part of this bookray. I'm currently reading my DD's books to return to her on our visit. But I will squeeze this one in asap, so it can be passed along soon.
UPDATE (11/24/08): I have finished reading all the books to return to my daughter, so now I can concentrate more fully on reading this book ... especially after the holiday. I will keep the page number updated on my profile, so you can see how I'm coming along. Thank you for your patience.
UPDATE (12/13/08): Half-way done ... I'm still plugging away. It's slow going, but interesting.
UPDATE (12/26/08): The end is in sight. I PMed NMReader for her address. I should be able to finish this by the end of the year and mail it on to her.

c. 2005 -- 909 pages -- Paperback -- Ancient book leads woman to discover the truth about Dracula -- 7 weeks on the USA Today top-10 Bestseller list:
#2 on 6/19/05
#4 on 6/26/05 and 7/10
#5 on 7/3/05 and 8/28
#7 on 7/17/05
#10 on 9/4/05

Back Cover: Breathtakingly suspenseful and beautifully written, The Historian is the story of a young woman plunged into a labyrinth where the secrets of her family's past connect to an inconceivable evil: the dark reign of Vlad the Impaler and a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive through the ages. The search for the truth becomes an adventure of monumental proportions, taking us from monasteries and dusty libraries to the capitals of Eastern Europe -- in a feat of storytelling so rich, so hypnotic, so exciting that it has enthralled readers around the world.

I finished reading this book late last night. It was very interesting, although rough going with history as well. I had to keep reading to find out what happened to Helen and her father. The history of Dracula was interesting, but very long.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

I'm mailing this book today to NMReader in NM ... as part of this bookray.
DC# 0306-1070-0000-8356-1167

This was actually mailed on 1/2/09 ... the post office closed early on 12/31 (before I got there).

It arrived today. I will start as soon as possible

I have started reading at home.

Still reading and enjoying. Thanks for the extra time kaila-ann

I am really enjoying the book. It started slow for me but I am having a hard time putting the book down to do my chores.

First huge thanks to kaila-ann for allowing me the time to read this book.

This was a fabulous book. The plot was well constructed. The characters were believeable and the likeable or disagreeable as was required. Descriptions of places gave me wanderlust. The whole book strengthen my love of history.

On the down side, I found the first couple hundred pages slow and hard to get into. I am sooo glad I didn't give up.

I have heartthumper's address and will mail as soon as I can.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Mailed today.

Thanks for the additional time to read.

Delivery Confirmation Number: 0307 0020 0005 1103 1979

Arrived today from NMReader. Thank you! I'll start it next and keep you updated.

Finished over the weekend on a road trip to Branson, Missouri. Loved this book. It did get a little long in parts, but it was all worth it. Thank you for including me!

Will mail on to xtrdnry later this week. Mailed April 10.

Arrived on Friday. Aim to begin reading before the end of this week!

I can't believe I took almost 4 weeks to read this, but it is an awfully large book, and there were moments in it where I felt my eyes glazing over.

I enjoyed the story, particularly the descriptions of the sights in some of the lesser known countries. I have travelled to some of the areas described, and the portrait Elizabeth Kostova painted was incredibly vivid.

At times the story moved very slowly, as we got bogged down in dates that must have taken a lot of research, but in the end were not really relevant to the overall tale.

Posted off today to fairy whispers.

G'day,

Just checking in to let you know I am safe and sound. I am having a nice visit with fairy-whispers before continuing on my travels. I hope you’re having as much fun as I am!

With Great Affection,

Your Book :-)

*I have three inter-library loan books which cannot be renewed, so I will have to read them first, but I will get to this as soon as I can. If that is a problem, just PM me and I will pass it along unread :-)

I loved this book and found it almost impossible to put down. The tale is told in an elegant, graceful style that brings to mind some of the great nineteenth century classics, and the characters are very real and believable. The Historian is set against the background of contemporary communist politics, yet it is filled with the rich details of Eastern European history. I love how we are invited to share the exciting, frustrating, and sometimes mundane life of historians - trying to piece together clues, some incomplete, others so tiny as to be almost missed, and come up with a plausible theory of how things once were. Despite this plodding journey, there is not a page of this book that is dull. Rather it is filled with a lingering feeling of menace, as though something sinister is peering over our shoulder this very minute.

The Dracula legend is old, tired, jaded. Many modern authors have tried to freshen it up by remaking the genre - portraying vampires as mis-understood creatures. Kostova returns to the image of vampires as evil, damned, terrifyingly seductive, yet she has done so in such a way that we are reminded of the bone-chilling fear these creatures can inspire.

I find it hard to believe that this is Kostova's first novel. With a talent this large, we can expect great things from her in future. My only fault with this book is that, after our slow piecing together of the facts, the ending seems a little fast and squashed together. No doubt this will improve as she gains experience.

All in all, I feel The Historian, like Bram Stoker's Dracula, will live on as a classic of the vampire genre.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:



Off to visit Lisagt :-)

Arrived today so onto the TBR it goes. I'm glad I'm on holidays next week as by the size of this I think I'll need extra reading time!!!!

Well would you believe that a generous bookcrosser has RABCKed a copy of this book to me for my bday so I will contact the next reader and send this one on ASAP.
Thanx for letting me join the ring kaila-ann...

Just making an entry to advise that The Historian is on its way to cordelia-anne.

I have just found out that this book never made it to cordelia-anne. Apparently she just received an empty envelope which is SO disappointing.
At least it was near the end of the ray...sorry kaila-ann...

I was so deeply disappointed to receive an empty envelope from Australia. As all of you cared for this book and sent it along to me, I obtained a replacement copy. Because I'm the last person on the list, I will probably take my time getting to the reading of The Historian. There is so much I have to do and I'm busy with Lenten reading now. So look for the next journal entry in April or May. I am looking forward to this and am glad to continue the ray.