The Historian: The captivating international bestseller and Richard and Judy Book Club pick

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Michael Fleming, "Sony buys rights to 'The Historian'", Variety (16 May 2005). Retrieved 20 May 2013. This has got to be one of the most disappointing books I've read in a long time. Although the descriptions of the various eastern European cities are often pretty and atmospheric, my frustration with this book won't let me mark it above one star. Vlad Tepes, also known as Dracula, is a vampire prince from Wallachia who is later revealed to be still alive. He is later killed by Helen, who shoots him in the heart with a silver bullet and thereby preventing him from recovering. Helen a b Stine Fletcher, "Reader, Unbury Him with a Word" (original), Necropsy: The Review of Horror Fiction (1 November 2005). Retrieved 28 May 2005. Archived copy. The Historian starts with the unnamed narrator, the 16-year-old daughter of a US diplomat based in Amsterdam, pulling the Kama Sutra and another relic of a book from the top shelf of her father's library. When she questions him about a strange message inside the book he starts to reveal the story of his quest to hunt down the remains of Vlad The Impaler - the historical character who inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Elizabeth Kostova

Amir Taheri, "Review of The Historian" (original), Asharq Alawsat (December 31, 2005). Retrieved May 29, 2009. Archived copy.Lesley McDowell, "The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova" (original), The Independent (14 August 2005). Retrieved 7 May 2009. Archived copy. Kostova, who grew up all over the US, read British studies at Yale before going to Bulgaria to record local folk music for a year. Seven days before she arrived, mass demonstrations and a politburo coup toppled dictator Todor Zhivkov, as the velvet revolution came to one of the Soviet Union's most loyal satellites. "It was an incredible time to be there," she says. She met her future husband, Georgi, a Bulgarian computer scientist who now works at the University of Michigan. The result is an interwoven narrative of journeying and revelations. Discovered documents abound. Kostova is good at academic prose and what is conveyed by its means. Her creations, whether learned articles or translations of 15th-century letters, are elegant and, in the main, convincing. History and questions about its role in society pervade The Historian. In particular, the novel argues that knowledge of history is power, particularly as it is written in books. [3] The title can refer to any of the major characters, including Dracula. [31] As Nancy Baker explains in The Globe and Mail, the novel is "about the love of books" and the knowledge and comfort they offer the characters– even Dracula himself is a bibliophile. [32] [33] As one critic explains, the novel is specifically about the love of scholarship. [30] At the heart of the novel is an exploration of "the power and price of scholarly obsession". [30] As Paul explains in the novel:

The Historian - Wikipedia

This novel is so well written and so riveting that I can well turn a blind eye to its flaws and just let myself be blown away again and again. Kostova has penned here the perfect armchair traveling book––also known as travelogue––taking us from the States to England, the Netherlands, Greece, France, Turkey, Romania, Hungary, etc., all that using different time frames and POVs and with the ease of a master storyteller who knows exactly when it is time to move the plot forward and when to take it slow and share with us readers bits and pieces of all the research she did to write her book. After all, it’s called The Historian for a reason. And last but not the least, Kostova's prose is absolutely beautiful––at times old-fashioned verging on the purple (but in a good way); at others downright effective and straight to the point. Again, perfect balance equals perfect rhythm. Equals a perfect story. Well, almost perfect... But the similarities between her work and Brown's stop there. "I began my book eight years before The Da Vinci Code was published and had no sense of that market trend even as I was finishing it. Every writer hopes his or her book will be its own thing. And of course the publishing world has been spellbound by this phenomenon, by a book going this crazy. I think my book will not be that kind of phenomenon. Jessica Treadway, "Raising the undead", Chicago Tribune (June 12, 2005). Access World News (subscription required). Retrieved May 10, 2009. a b c Jane Sullivan, "Dracula and the human factor", The Age (June 3, 2006). LexisNexis (subscription required). Retrieved May 7, 2009.Bob Thompson, "The Writers Bitten by the Vampire Bug", The Washington Post (28 July 2005). Access World News (subscription required). Retrieved 10 May 2009. Most importantly, you will become more intelligent, you will learn the art of advanced thinking because really, all college teaches you is how to get good grades by regurgitating textbooks. When you are older, as you begin to read critically, you will learn to appreciate a good book, and you will be able to identify literary bullshit when you see it. Susan Balee, "On a scholarly hunt for bad old Vlad's tomb", The Philadelphia Inquirer (12 July 2005). LexisNexis (subscription required). Retrieved 7 May 2009.

The Historian Quotes by Elizabeth Kostova - Goodreads The Historian Quotes by Elizabeth Kostova - Goodreads

I've always been interested in foreign relations. It's my belief that study of history should be our preparation for understanding the present rather than an escape from it.” Anna Carey, "Mad about Vlad", The Irish Times (August 6, 2005). LexisNexis (subscription required). Retrieved May 7, 2009. a b Susanna J. Sturgis, "Living the Undead Life", Women's Review of Books (Jan/February 2006). Retrieved 20 June 2009. The 12-hour abridged audio book, released by Time Warner, is narrated by six different actors ( Joanne Whalley, Martin Jarvis, Dennis Boutsikaris, Jim Ward, Rosalyn Landor and Robin Atkin Downes). Boutsikaris' voicing of Paul has been called "flat" while Publishers Weekly complained that it was "nonchalant and impersonal". They also singled out the voicing of Dracula for criticism, writing that "his accent and delivery is exactly the stereotypical vampire voice used by everyone from Bela Lugosi to Sesame Street's the Count". [57] There is swelling orchestral music at the beginning and end of each chapter, of which the reviewers approved. [58] [59] According to Kostova, Bram Stoker "created Dracula as a brilliant figure; a creature that is part monster and part genius. Dracula represents the best and worst of us." [19]

The novel blends the history and folklore of Vlad Țepeș and his fictional equivalent Count Dracula and has been described as a combination of genres, including Gothic novel, adventure novel, detective fiction, travelogue, postmodern historical novel, epistolary epic, and historical thriller. Kostova was intent on writing a serious work of literature and saw herself as an inheritor of the Victorian style. [4] Although based on Bram Stoker's Dracula, The Historian is not a horror novel, but rather an eerie tale. [5] [14] The novel is concerned with questions about history, its role in society, and how it is represented in books, as well as the nature of good and evil. [10] As Kostova explains, "Dracula is a metaphor for the evil that is so hard to undo in history." [10] [15] The evils brought about by religious conflict are a particular theme and the novel explores the relationship between the Christian West and the Islamic East. [16] [17] Peter Bebergal, "Literary take on vampires gives 'Historian' bite" (original), The Boston Globe (June 15, 2005). Retrieved May 7, 2009. Archived copy. The renown, she says, will be shortlived. "Culture moves so fast that this kind of thing goes away pretty fast. It's a flash in the pan." The money will last longer. She says she is grateful for it and will use it to buy the time she needs to concentrate on her work, although she hopes to return to teaching in the autumn. The 26-hour unabridged audio book, released by Books on Tape (a division of Random House), is narrated by Justine Eyre and Paul Michael. According to Booklist, they "do an incredible job voicing an array of characters with European accents ranging from Dutch, French, and German". Noting that the book is particularly suited for audio because it is told in letters, they praise Eyre's "earnest and innocent" tone in her voicing of the narrator and Michael's "clear characterizations". [60] Film [ edit ]

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova | Goodreads The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova | Goodreads

It was strange, I reflected.. that even in the weirdest circumstances, the most troubling episodes of one's life, the greatest divides from home and familiarity, there were these moments of undeniable joy.” Late one night in 1972, as a 16-year-old girl, she discovers a mysterious book and a sheaf of letters in her father's library—a discovery that will have dreadful and far-reaching consequences, and will send her on a journey of mind-boggling danger. While seeking clues to the secrets of her father's past and her mother's puzzling disappearance, she follows a trail from London to Istanbul to Budapest and beyond, and learns that the letters in her possession provide a link to one of the world's darkest and most intoxicating figures. Generation after generation, the legend of Dracula has enticed and eluded both historians and opportunists alike. Now a young girl undertakes the same search that ended in the death and defilement of so many others—in an attempt to save her father from an unspeakable fate. Sara Nelson, "The Hot 'Historian'", Publishers Weekly 252:27 (July 11, 2005). EBSCO (subscription required). Retrieved July 20, 2009. Indeed at times it seems as though Kostova is elevating the pursuit of non-commercial fiction to the point of principle. "No book that is written for an external purpose is going to be a passionately felt book for the writer or the reader. I don't see the point in doing that," she says. "It's such a shame. It's a disgrace actually, that so much good writing goes unrewarded and so much bad writing is mass produced." Delia O'Hara, "Fact: women know fiction: It's still a man's medium, but females are rising in book publishing world charts", The Chicago Sun-Times (30 November 2005). Access World News (subscription required). Retrieved 7 May 2009.a b c Nancy Baker, "The Dracula Code?", The Globe and Mail (2 July 2005). LexisNexis (subscription required). Retrieved 7 May 2009. a b Amir Taheri, "Review of The Historian" (original), Asharq Alawsat (31 December 2005). Retrieved 29 May 2009. Archived copy. For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history’s terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth. And once you’ve seen that truth—really seen it—you can’t look away.”