The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

I expect that librarians should be recommending books and that doctors should be keeping us well, but it doesn't always happen just that way. After I told my doctor about a recent trip to Transylvania, he said "wait a minute, I've got a book for you to read." And ducking into his office he returned to the exam room with Kostova's The Historian. He had just finished it and told me to keep it as long as I needed to (and it's a long book).

This wasn't the first time somebody had recommended the book, but this one felt like fate. Who am I to go against my doctor's recommendation? I didn't know that much about the book beyond the blurb, but I soon realized it was a vampire story -- a Dracula story, to be precise -- with a lot of history thrown in. By the time I got to the undead librarians, I was hooked.

This is a good book, and a lot of its charm comes from its settings. Much of it takes place in libraries, but the locaitons vary tremendously, from the U.S. to Britain to Western Europe to Eastern Europe and Turkey. The combination of travelogue and history woven into a suspenseful vampire story makes a fascinating read. Though one chapter reads like an extended history lecture, interest in the narrative rarely flags. Flashbacks within flashbacks can occasionally be a bit confusing in remembering who the point-of-view narrator is, but confusion is rare and the device adds a lot of interest and variety. I talked up the book around the house and it became one of the rare titles that Marsha & I both read and enjoyed.

I read much of this in print, but also listened to a lot of the unabridged recorded version on my iPod. The recording alternates between two readers, who change with female and male narration in the text. Both readers do an outstanding job with a large number of characters and accents appropriate to many nationalities.

Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys historical ficiton, horror, speculative fiction, travel stories or undead librarians!