We are currently discussing this book with the Book Group, so here is some additional information for anyone who may wish to join us.

INTRODUCTION

It’s two days before Christmas, and Sister Evangeline awakens to perform the prayers and devotional duties that have occupied her every day for the past several years. At twenty-three, she is the youngest of the nuns living at St. Rose Convent in New York’s verdant Hudson Valley, but Evangeline already expects that each day up to her last will follow the same quiet routine—until a mysterious letter opens the door to a past she cannot deny and a future as terrifying as it is unimaginable.

At first glance, the letter appears quite harmless—a politely worded missive from one V. A. Verlaine petitioning the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration for access to the convent’s archives for research purposes. In fulfilling her duties as an assistant in the library, Evangeline has received and turned down numerous similar requests. However, something in Verlaine’s letter provokes her curiosity, and she is unable to suppress her desire to know more.

Meanwhile, the letter’s writer is en route to New York’s Central Park for a scheduled meeting with his current employer, Percival Grigori. Verlaine, an aspiring art historian, and Grigori, an ailing but peculiarly menacing older man, first met at an art auction. When the two discovered their mutual interest in the philanthropic Rockefeller family, Grigori offered to pay him generously for any and all information he possessed or could uncover about the late Abigail Rockefeller.

Verlaine’s search leads him to the St. Rose convent, where he crosses paths with Evangeline. The two are instinctually drawn to trust one another, and they share what scant knowledge they possess. Evangeline confirms that Abigail Rockefeller and Mother Innocenta were indeed in correspondence, just about the time a devastating fire nearly destroyed the convent. But Verlaine is still unable to fathom Grigori’s interest in a handful of old letters.

Following her only real clue, Evangeline painstakingly unravels the truth of her residence at St. Rose. She discovers that she is the daughter of two angelologists, a group of scholars, theologians, and warriors who have battled the Nephilim—the beautiful and rapacious descendents of fallen angels and humans—since the dawn of time. The golden lyre she wears around her neck is more than a pretty trinket from her grandmother—it is a reminder of the betrayal of God and man, good versus evil, and Evangeline’s own destined role in the battle to come.

Grigori himself belongs to a high-ranking Nephilim family who once laid bloody siege to the Sisters hoping to steal the priceless artifact the Grigoris thought might be hidden at the convent. Now that Verlaine has confirmed these suspicions, they will stop at nothing to obtain it.

Masterfully interweaving the events of the present day with those of Nazi-era Europe and the Middle Ages, Angelology is breathtakingly inventive, sexy, and rich with dark, gothic menace.

Danielle Trussoni – Angelology *reading guide* is a post from: Book Addicts Book Group

May – Dracula Month

	Dracula – Bram Stoker
	Hosted by: Ellie Start Date: Fri 1st May 2009 Sign-up here
	When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of horrific discoveries about his client. Soon afterwards, various bizarre incidents unfold in England: an apparently unmanned shipis wrecked off the coast of Whitby; a young woman discovers strange puncture marks on her neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the ‘Master’ and his imminent arrival. In Dracula, Bram Stoker created one of the great masterpieces of the horror genre, brilliantly evoking a nightmare world of vampires and vampire hunters and also illuminating the dark corners of Victorian sexuality and desire. Book Discussion Here

	Fevre Dream – George RR Martin
	Hosted by: Nabs Start Date: 13th May 2009 Sign-up here
	Abner Marsh has had his wish come true – he has built the Fevre Dream, the finest steamship to sail the Mississippi. Abner hopes to race the boat some day, but his partner is making it hard for him to realise his dreams. Joshua York put up the money for the Fevre Dream, but now rumours have started about his the company he keeps, his odd eating habits and strange hours. As the Dream sails the great river, it leaves in it’s a wake one too many dark tales, forcing Abner to face down the man who made his dreams become reality. Book Discussion Here

	The Vampire Lestat – Anne Rice
	Co-Hosted by: Kittystyles & LizSara Start Date: 20th May 2009 Sign-up here
	Once an aristocrat in the heady days of pre-revolutionary France, now Lestat is a rockstar in the demonic, shimmering 1980s. He rushes through the centuries in search of others like him, seeking answers to the mystery of his terrifying existence. His story, the second volume in Anne Rice’s best-selling Vampire Chronicles, is mesmerizing, passionate, and thrilling. Book Discussion Here

	Enchantment – Orson Scott Card
	Hosted by: Jerseygirl Start Date: Mon 1st June 2009 Sign-up here
	The moment young Ivan stumbled upon a clearing in the dense Carpathian forest, his life was forever changed. Atop a pedestal encircled by fallen leaves, the beautiful princess Katerina lay as still as death–while a malevolent presence stirred in the hidden depths below. Now, years later, Ivan is compelled to return. He finds the clearing just as he left it. This time he does not run . . . Book Discussion Here

	Grimm’s Grimmest
	Hosted by: Snapesgirl Start Date: Mon 8th June 2009
	Murder, kidnapping, cruel and unusual punishment, violent revenge—these are not the bedtime stories mummy used to read. Newly reissued with a fresh cover, Grimm’s Grimmest presents nineteen original, unsanitized, wholly unholy tales as they were first collected by the Brothers Grimm circa 1822—all fiendishly illustrated. The tales harken back to a time when travelers risked roasting or worse, and bad manners yielded frightful consequences. An insightful introduction makes sense of the mayhem, shedding light on how the Grimm brothers went from macabre to mainstream in fairly short order. From the true horror of Aschenputtel (the original Cinderella story) to Rapunzel’s dark secret, Grimm’s Grimmest features the authentic stories born long ago in the land of the Black Forest, at a time when fairy tales never ended happily ever after. Book Discussion Here

	The Bloody Chamber – Angela Carter
	Hosted by: Ellie Start Date: Mon 15th June 2009 Sign-up here
	From familiar fairy tales and legends – Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires and werewolves – Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories. They include “The Company of Wolves”, on which the prize-winning film of the same name was based. Carter relates traditional fairy tales through her own unique perspective. The mind of the modern feminist unravels the mysteries of the subconscious and its related symbolism. Book Discussion Here

Book Group May and June 2009 is a post from: Book Addicts Book Group

May – Dracula Month  

	Dracula – Bram Stoker
	Hosted by: Ellie Start Date: Fri 1st May 2009      Sign-up here
	When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of horrific discoveries about his client. Soon afterwards, various bizarre incidents unfold in England: an apparently unmanned shipis wrecked off the coast of Whitby; a young woman discovers strange puncture marks on her neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the ‘Master’ and his imminent arrival. In Dracula, Bram Stoker created one of the great masterpieces of the horror genre, brilliantly evoking a nightmare world of vampires and vampire hunters and also illuminating the dark corners of Victorian sexuality and desire. Book Discussion Here

	Fevre Dream – George RR Martin
	Hosted by: Nabs Start Date: Wednesday 13th May 2009              Sign-up here
	Abner Marsh has had his wish come true – he has built the Fevre Dream, the finest steamship to sail the Mississippi. Abner hopes to race the boat some day, but his partner is making it hard for him to realise his dreams. Joshua York put up the money for the Fevre Dream, but now rumours have started about his the company he keeps, his odd eating habits and strange hours. As the Dream sails the great river, it leaves in it’s a wake one too many dark tales, forcing Abner to face down the man who made his dreams become reality. Book Discussion Here

	The Vampire Lestat – Anne Rice
	Co-Hosted by: Kittystyles & LizSara Start Date: Wednesday 20th May  2009      Sign-up here
	Once an aristocrat in the heady days of pre-revolutionary France, now Lestat is a rockstar in the demonic, shimmering 1980s. He rushes through the centuries in search of others like him, seeking answers to the mystery of his terrifying existence. His story, the second volume in Anne Rice’s best-selling Vampire Chronicles, is mesmerizing, passionate, and thrilling. Book Discussion Here

May is Dracula Month at the Book Addicts Book Group is a post from: Book Addicts Book Group

May Book: Dead and Gone – Charlaine Harris

Your Host for this discussion is : Jerseygirl
Start Date: May until we finish
Other Info: book nine in the Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire/True Blood series 
Publication Date:  5th May US and 18th June UK (yeah right, I’m ordering from the US)

Synopsis: A new Sookie Stackhouse book is always a treat! Sookie is a sexy, sassy cocktail waitress who works at Merlotte’s Bar in Bon Temps, Louisiana. She’s just a regular gal, with all the normal hopes and fears, about dating, boys and life in general – oh, and she’s telepathic. And her boyfriends have included Vampire Bill, her first love and the were-tiger Quinn. And Bon Temps is a pretty normal rural town, where murders are mercifully rare. Well, maybe not that rare, as Sookie keeps finding out in this award-winning, New York Times bestselling series! And now Sookie’s come to the small screen in TRUE BLOOD, ‘the fall’s weirdest and most compelling show’ (ROLLING STONE), created by Alan Ball (SIX FEET UNDER) and starring Anna Paquin as the irrepressible heroine. Yup that’s all the synopsis I have right now lol So here’s a link to the first chapter

Sign-up Process:

To sign up for this discussion please post in this thread and when we are ready and everyone has the book, we’ll get started.  The discussion will be very informal.

As usual if you are not a member of the Book Addicts Book Group, the above forum link will not work for you

Paranormal Social Club – May 2009 is a post from: Book Addicts Book Group

Here is the Book Group schedule for Jan-Mar this year.  You can see the full schedule by visiting the forum.

January Book Groups

Interview with a Vampire – Anne Rice

Hosted by: BW Start Date: Mon 12th Jan 2009 Sign-up here

In a darkened room a young man sits telling the macabre and eerie story of his life – the story of a vampire, gifted with eternal life, cursed with an exquisite craving for human blood. Anne Rice’s compulsively readable novel is arguably the most celebrated work of vampire fiction since Bram Stoker’s Dracula was published in 1897. As the Washington Post said on its first publication, it is a ‘thrilling, strikingly original work of the imagination …sometimes horrible, sometimes beautiful, always unforgettable’.

Death on the Nile – Agatha Christie

Hosted by: Thea Start Date: Thurs 22nd Jan 2009 Sign-up here

The tranquillity of a cruise along the Nile is shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway has been shot through the head. She was young, stylish and beautiful, a girl who had everything — until she lost her life. Hercule Poirot recalls an earlier outburst by a fellow passenger: ‘I’d like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger.’ Yet in this exotic setting’ nothing is ever quite what it seems!

February – Book-to-Movie Month

The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco

Hosted by: Ysoeye Start Date: Mon 2nd Feb 2009 Signup Here

The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are happening under the cover of night. A spectacular popular and critical success, “The Name of the Rose” is not only a narrative of a murder investigation but an astonishing chronicle of the Middle Ages.

I Am Legend – Richard Matheson

Hosted by: Nabs Start Date: Mon 9th Feb 2009 Signup Here

Robert Neville is the last living man on earth … but he is not alone. Every other man, woman and child on the planet has become a vampire, and they are all hungry for Neville’s blood. By day he is the hunter, stalking the sleeping undead through the abandoned ruins of civilization. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for the dawn. How long can one man survive like this? One of the most influential “vampire” novels of the 20C. This book has been made into three movies – The Last Man on Earth (1964), The Omega Man (1971) and I Am Legend (2007)

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer – Patrick Suskind

Hosted by: Forgotten Start Date: Mon 16th Feb 2009 Signup Here

Survivor, genius, perfumer, killer: this is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. He is abandoned on the filthy streets of Paris as a child, but grows up to discover he has an extraordinary gift: a sense of smell more powerful than any other human’s. Soon, he is creating the most sublime fragrances in all the city. Yet there is one odour he cannot capture. It is exquisite, magical: the scent of a young virgin. And to get it he must kill. And kill.

March – WWII Germany Fiction Month

Suite Francaise – Irene Nemirovsky

Hosted by: Ellie Start Date: Mon 2nd March 2009 Signup Here

In 1941, Irene Nemirovsky sat down to write a book that would convey the magnitude of what she was living through, not in terms of battles and politicians, but by evoking the domestic lives and personal trials of the ordinary citizens of France. She did not live to see her ambition fulfilled, or to know that sixty-five years later, “Suite Francaise” would be published for the first time, and hailed as a masterpiece. Set during a year that begins with France’s fall to the Nazis in June 1940 and ends with Germany turning its attention to Russia, “Suite Francaise” falls into two parts. The first is a brilliant depiction of a group of Parisians as they flee the Nazi invasion and make their way through the chaos of France; the second follows the inhabitants of a small rural community under occupation who find themselves thrown together in ways they never expected. Nemirovsky’s brilliance as a writer lay in her portrayal of people, and this is a novel that teems with wonderful characters, each more vivid than the next. Haughty aristocrats, bourgeois bankers and snobbish aesthetes rub shoulders with uncouth workers and bolshy farmers. Women variously resist or succumb to the charms of German soldiers. However, amidst the mess of defeat, and all the hypocrisy and compromise, there is hope. True nobility and love exist, but often in surprising places.

The Book Thief – Markus Zusak

Hosted by: Forgotten Start Date: Mon 9th March 2009 Signup Here

1939 – Nazi Germany – The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier. Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall. Some important information – this novel is narrated by death. It’s a small story, about: a girl; an accordionist; some fanatical Germans; a Jewish fist fighter; and quite a lot of thievery.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas – John Boyne

Hosted by: Ginger Start Date: Mon 16th March 2009 Signup Here

Lines may divide us, but hope will unite us …Nine-year-old Bruno knows nothing of the Final Solution and the Holocaust. He is oblivious to the appalling cruelties being inflicted on the people of Europe by his country. All he knows is that he has been moved from a comfortable home in Berlin to a house in a desolate area where there is nothing to do and no one to play with. Until he meets Shmuel, a boy who lives a strange parallel existence on the other side of the adjoining wire fence and who, like the other people there, wears a uniform of striped pyjamas. Bruno’s friendship with Shmuel will take him from innocence to revelation. And in exploring what he is unwittingly a part of, he will inevitably become subsumed by the terrible process.

Please note you must be a member of the forum and logged in to be able to visit the signup links above.

Paranormal Social Club – Book Discussions *reminder*

January – Veil of Midnight by Lara Adrian

February – Bone Crossed by Patricia Briggs

March – White Witch, Black Curse by Kim Harrison

April – Turn Coat by Jim Butcher

May – Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris

June – Lover Avenged by JR Ward

To see more of what’s happening in the Paranormal Social Club, please visit that board as it has its own schedule.

Book Group Schedule – Jan-Mar 2009! is a post from: Book Addicts Book Group

This month we are reading the following books in the Book Group, complete with lovely and informative Hosts, so come along and join in.

George Orwell – 1984

Novel by George Orwell, written in 1948 and published in 1949 as a warning about the menaces of totalitarianism. The novel is set in an imaginary future world that is dominated by three perpetually warring totalitarian police states. The book’s hero, Winston Smith, is a minor party functionary in one of these states. His longing for truth and decency leads him to secretly rebel against the government. Smith has a love affair with a like-minded woman, but they are both arrested by the Thought Police. The ensuing imprisonment, torture, and reeducation of Smith are intended not merely to break him physically or make him submit but to root out his independent mental existence and his spiritual dignity. Orwell’s warning of the dangers of totalitarianism made a deep impression on his contemporaries and upon subsequent readers, and the book’s title and many of its coinages, such as NEWSPEAK, became bywords for modern political abuses.

Jon Krakauer – Into the Wild

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later…(don’t want to spoil the ending for anyone who isn’t familiar with the book!)

Richard and Judy Book – December

This month’s New Writer’s Club book is Loving Frank by Nancy Horan.

I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river. I want to feel the current.

So writes Mamah Borthwick Cheney in her diary as she struggles to justify her clandestine love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright. Four years earlier, in 1903, Mamah and her husband, Edwin, had commissioned the renowned architect to design a new home for them. During the construction of the house, a powerful attraction developed between Mamah and Frank, and in time the lovers, each married with children, embarked on a course that would shock Chicago society and forever change their lives.

Reading Challenges

December is also the time to update your 52 books lists before we reach the end of this year, and don’t forget we are also looking for your top 10s.  Go to your 52 books thread, browse through the list of titles you’ve read this year and then come up with your top ten favourite books and your top ten worst books from the list.

You can also start your new 2009 Book challenges thread while you’re there.  Next year we will be keeping track of all our reading, including the 52 book challenge and some other smaller challenges throughout the year.

January book groups are still being decided, but don’t forget to check what books made it to our Longlist of books for next year!

Christmas Writing Contest

There will of course be a seasonal writing challenge for this month too.  We are still working out a few details but it will be Christmas themed and details posted up in the forum shortly.

Love the books, buy the t-shirts!

Also of news, we have some cool book related designs currently available in both Cafepress and Zazzle shops and if I ever get any spare time, then I will add new designs to the other shops.  The photos are behind the more tag/cut, so please click to check them out.

Zazzle designs with links are featured below. The Cafepress designs are similar, just click on the Cafepress link to see them.

Twilight related designs are also in both shops too. The ranges are similar but not identical and obviously each company has its own product ranges which do differ quite a lot. I ordered a “Reading is Sexy” white thermal travel mug for someone and it arrived yesterday. I have to say I’m really impressed with the quality. It looks really good. I also personalised it with the name of the person I’m giving it too. This is an option Zazzle has that Cafepress doesn’t!

December Book Addicts is a post from: Book Addicts Book Group

Just a quick reminder that this month we are reading and talking about The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger and The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides.  Both fantastic books and both discussions have just started so there’s plenty of time to join in.

In December we can look forward to 1984 by George Orwell and Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.

Both The Virgin Suicides and Into the Wild will also have a book-to-movie discussion included.

Also this month we are featuring the Richard and Judy New Writers Club book, The Marriage Bureau for Rich People by Farahad Zama, which is described as Jane Austen in India.  I have reservations that anything should be compared to Jane Austen but we’ll see.  Grab it and check it out for yourself, it looks like quite a quick read, and is apparently the start of a new series.

The December book for this New Writers Club is Loving Frank by Nancy Horan.  Don’t even get me started on the trouble I went through to get this book with the cover I wanted lol.  First edition was out in June, second edition with hideous cover came out in October, and quite honestly I wouldn’t want to read a book with a cover like that, so I made it my mission to track down a copy of the edition with the cover I liked (it is btw now out of print but you might still be able to find it in individual bookshops)  I know I know, don’t judge a book by its cover :p

Paranormal Social Club

The votes have been counted and the results are in, and November’s PSC book is Pleasure Unbound (A demonica novel) by Larissa Ione.  A book that is apparently full of wit and wicked hot demons!  First book in a brand new series, so come and join us.

What I’ve been reading

What I’ve been reading recently includes The Time Traveler’s Wife both in print form and as an audio book and I have to say that it is the best audio book I’ve “listened to” in ages.  The narrators were superb, completely faultless and utterly compelling.  I was just blown away and listened to it for 18 hours!!! There is also an abridged version but I just hate abridged books.  Just started on The Virgin Suicides for the book group and just finished the third instalment of David Wellington’s excellent vampire series, Vampire Zero.   Horror is not usually my thing and these are classed as horror/thriller.  I discovered them accidentally when browsing on Amazon and the second one was recommended to me.  I liked the cover, then discovered it was a sequel and hunted down the first book.  Kept them on the shelf for about a year lol before finding them again (there’s a lot of books there and a chair in front).  Read the first and the second and then couldn’t wait for the third one to be published here and ordered it from the US.  The vampires are not sexy, they are bloodthirsty fiends.  There are no superpowerful female characters, and no other type of supernatural creatures at all.  There are just cops and state troopers doing the best they can with what they have.  There is quite a lot of death and blood and gore but nothing to give you nightmares, they are really pretty exciting!  The books are:

13 Bullets
99 Coffins
Vampire Zero
23 Hours (is due out next year)

99 Coffins is an interesting book because it is billed as a historical vampire novel and it’s set in Gettysburg, so there is a lot in it about the civil war including flashbacks and historical references.

A bit more about the author I think is in order too since he’s very generous with his writing.  If you go to his website you will be able to read approximately six of his books online for free.  Yes, FREE.  Some of his books including 13 Bullets started off life as online serials which he wrote as a kind of test to see if it would work.  He has also written three zombie novels in the same way which are all available to read for free on his site, as well as for purchase in printed form.  Monster Island, Monster Nation, and Monster Planet – I think the titles might be an indication of how bad things get lol.  There is also another couple of books on there too, one called Plague Zone which features a Seattle librarian as its hero, and Frostbitten, a werewolf novel, which I am currently reading inbetween everything else, and it’s the first of his books that I’m reading for free on his site.  I’m about a third of the way through and I’m liking it so far.  Interesting take on the werewolf mythology.

Oh yeah and I forgot to upload a new audio to my phone so I got caught on the train yesterday with nothing new to read, so I started listening to American Gods again. It’s not Mr Gaiman narrating this time but the dude who is reading it is just perfect.  Another audio I would highly recommend.  I’m slowing collecting all of his audio books, so far I have six – The Graveyard book, Fragile Things, Stardust all read by the author, and Good Omens, Anansi Boys and American Gods.  On some of them there are some great interviews with Neil Gaiman which are just such a bonus to listen to.  The Anansi Boys is read by an British Comedian/actor called Lenny Henry who is very well known here but maybe not be so well known overseas.  He is just brilliant with all the Caribbean accents and really brings a unique flavour to the book.  I would of course, recommend them all

And now I need to go read more…

Book Group latest is a post from: Book Addicts Book Group

The film rights to The Historian were bought by Sony in 2005 for a seven figure sum, and the film is expected to be released sometime in 2010.

From the Jacket

“To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history….”

Late one night, exploring her father’s library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters. The letters are all addressed to “My dear and unfortunate successor,” and they plunge her into a world she never dreamed of—a labyrinth where the secrets of her father’s past and her mother’s mysterious fate connect to an inconceivable evil hidden in the depths of history.

The letters provide links to one of the darkest powers that humanity has ever known—and to a centuries-long quest to find the source of that darkness and wipe it out. It is a quest for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of the legend of Dracula. Generations of historians have risked their reputations, their sanity, and even their lives to learn the truth about Vlad the Impaler and Dracula. Now one young woman must decide whether to take up this quest herself—to follow her father in a hunt that nearly brought him to ruin years ago, when he was a vibrant young scholar and her mother was still alive.

What does the legend of Vlad the Impaler have to do with the modern world? Is it possible that the Dracula of myth truly existed—and that he has lived on, century after century, pursuing his own unknowable ends? The answers to these questions cross time and borders, as first the father and then the daughter search for clues, from dusty Ivy League libraries to Istanbul, Budapest, and the depths of Eastern Europe. In city after city, in monasteries and archives, in letters and in secret conversations, the horrible truth emerges about Vlad the Impaler’s dark reign—and about a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive down through the ages.

Parsing obscure signs and hidden texts, reading codes worked into the fabric of medieval monastic traditions—and evading the unknown adversaries who will go to any lengths to conceal and protect Vlad’s ancient powers—one woman comes ever closer to the secret of her own past and a confrontation with the very definition of evil. Elizabeth Kostova’s debut novel is an adventure of monumental proportions, a relentless tale that blends fact and fantasy, history and the present, with an assurance that is almost unbearably suspenseful—and utterly unforgettable.

Reading Guide

1. In the “Note to the Reader,” the narrator tells us, “There is a final resource to which I have resorted when necessary–the imagination.” How does she use this resource in telling her story? Is it a resource to which the other historians in the book resort, as well?
2. The theme of mentors and disciples is an important one in the book. Who are the story’s mentors, and in what sense is each a mentor? Who are the book’s disciples?
3. Near the end of Chapter 4, Rossi says, “Human history’s full of evil deeds, and maybe we ought to think of them with tears, not fascination.” Does he follow his own advice? How does his attitude toward history evolve in the course of his own story?
4. In Chapter 5, Paul’s friend Massimo asserts that in history, there are no small questions. What does he mean by this and how does this idea inform the book? Do you agree with his statement?
5. Helen and Paul come from very different worlds, although they share a passion for history. How have their upbringings differed? What factors have shaped each?
6. Throughout the book, anyone who finds an antique book with a dragon in the middle is exposed to some kind of danger. What does this danger consist of? Is it an external power, or do the characters bring it upon themselves?
7. Each of the characters is aware of some of the history being made in his or her own times. What are some of these real historical events, and why are they important to the story?
8. At the beginning of Chapter 1, Paul’s daughter notes, “I had been raised in a world so sheltered that it makes my adult life in academia look positively adventurous.” How does she change as a person in the course of her quest?
9. Helen’s history is deeply intertwined with that of Dracula. In what ways are the two characters connected? Does she triumph over his legacy, or not?
10. In Chapter 73, Dracula states his credo: “History has taught us that the nature of man is evil, sublimely so.” Do the characters and events of the novel prove or disprove this belief?

Reprinted with the permission of the publisher, Little, Brown & Co. Page numbers refer to the hardcover USA edition and may vary in other editions.

The Historian – Elizabeth Kostova : Reading Guide is a post from: Book Addicts Book Group

Dark Lover – J R Ward

This is the first book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series and is bound to be a lively discussion.  Hope you can join us!

Stardust – Neil Gaiman

This is a book to movie discussion and as such, we will be discussing the treatment of the movie as well as discussing the book in depth.

The Stars My Destination – Alfred Bester

One of the best science fiction writers of his time and a man truly ahead of his time, Alfred Bester’s classic is as fresh and unique as it was when it was first published in 1957.  If you only read one classic sci-fi book this year, make it this one.  Timeless.

June 2008 Book Group is a post from: Book Addicts Book Group

Small Favor – Jim Butcher

This is book ten in the wonderful Dresden Files series. Find out what Harry gets up to in this book and join in the discussion with us next month.

Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery

A favourite childhood book for many a young girl for 100 hundred years. Yes Anne of Green Gables is celebrating its centenary this year with a special edition of the book. Pick one up now and join us!

*Note: we only have two hosted discussions in April due to some schedule switching*

April 2008 Book Group is a post from: Book Addicts Book Group