The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The good news is, I just finished a copyediting job and we have a semibreak from class during the next two and a half weeks--middle school and high school kids are studying for finals, so we only have elementary school kids, or four classes a week. That means more time to hang out with friends, watch movies, and, of course, blog.

The bad news is, I'm in the middle of The Historian, a book about Vlad the Impaler (a.k.a. Dracula), so everything's on hold until I finish it--and it's 800 pages long. I'm not usually into vampires, but this book isn't full of sensationalism and gore; it's about a family of historians who search for the tomb of Vlad Tepes, the real-life Dracula. They're convinced he's still alive, thanks to some tragic events, and they're desperate to stop him. As salon.com says, "This year, the publishing business finally delivers on its promises: Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian is a hypnotic yarn, saturated in authentic history and eerie intrigue."

Poenari, the ruins of Vlad Tepes' fortress in Romania.

At any rate, I can't put it down, and I'm already trying to figure out when I can take a trip to Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Istanbul. If you're interested in history, or central Europe, or the Ottoman Empire, or vampire lore, you should read this book. Hopefully I'll finish it this weekend. Then it's back to business as usual, but for now, it's all about the book.