Next book picked

I have picked the next book from the list of 100 books and that it is THE SECRET HISTORY by Donna Tartt. I have read the first few pages and we already have a murder in the prologue and then the first chapter is the meeting of the characters. Our narrator is Richard Papen who is ashamed of his family and goes to college in Hampden College in Vermont because he knows his family is too poor to get there. He manages to wrangle a scholarship and is off to school where he meets a group of people taking Greek, a class he wants but cannot get into because the professor only takes five people. So that is where I am at, I hope it does not take me until December to read.

I also am in the midst of a couple of books I started while waiting for my library selections to come in, THE LAST ANNIVERSARY, which is the book club choice for this month, and THE BEAUTIFUL MYSTERY which is in a mystery series that I like to read by Louise Penny.

Review: DRACULA by Bram Stoker

DRACULA by Bram Stoker published by Peter Bedrick Books in 1988.  The original copy was published in 1897. By the standards of today this book would be considered cumbersome, because we tend to look for a fast read and parts of this book cause us to reflect on the philosophy of the times. Especially in the last half of the book when our heroine Mina is described as having a masculine brain and our villain Dracula is said to have a child-like brain. Our Doctor Van Helsing waxes eloquently about these characteristics. I have to remember that at the time woman were thought to be without the ability to think for themselves. Knowing that our author was friends with writers such as Mary Shelley, we know that he had insight to the fact that women were capable of strategy and deep thought. There is a surprise from all the men when Mina announces that she knows the timetable for the trains that run and that she can use her brain to help them strategize the way to kill Dracula, though she has been bitten by Dracula.

That is just one theme that runs through the book. We have Dracula who has been around for some time, trying to conquer worlds. He is not always successful as we see in this book, that he has been forced back to his castle several times. This is the foreshadowing that knows that he can be defeated. But it also leads us to the fact that there must be several vampires (though they are not called that in the book,) or un-dead that Dracula has made in the past. We do not know if his death has released them from their bonds. We are introduced to the many ways to kill the un-dead, such as stakes through the heart, chopping off the head and filling it with garlic, plus some other methods. We are also introduced that the vampire bat can change shape from human to bat.

There are things that Dracula can do in this book that have not shown up in current stories of Dracula. For instance Dracula can shape shift into a wolf, reminding us of the werewolf. He can control not only humans but other species. The main thing that he can do that we do not see in other stories, is that he can actually come out in the daylight, There are conditions, but in a couple of scenes we have Dracula appear in the city, helping with his coffin, meeting people in his house. All these occur during the day. This makes me wonder, where did we get the notion that he sleeps all day. Our author attributed this to age of the vampire, because our first known new victim Lucy, must return to her coffin during the day-time.

I liked the format, though it took me a bit to recognize that when we shifted to other journal entries that I had to look at the dates of the entries. Jonathan Harkers initial entries start May through June 30th and are Chapters 1-4, Mina's letters to Lucy start chapter 5 and start May 9th. So the entries are not consecutive, not until all five main characters are together and Mina tries to keep everything ordered. Then towards the end of the book we have the split again as there are three groups heading in the same direction.

I really enjoyed the book, not so much the pictures in this edition. I think the pictures distracted from my vision of the story and the character Dracula, as I have said in a previous entry about the book, I guess I had a more Hollywood perception of Dracula.

What to read next

I am still working on DRACULA, but I need to figure out what is the next in this set of books to read. I was looking at my list and realized that the list has changed on Facebook since my first download, not by much, just a few books. My next book club book is THE LAST ANNIVERSARY , by Liane Moriarty. I do not know about you but when I see the name Moriarty I think of Sherlock Holmes. This book is a mystery centered around a baby called the Munro Baby.

I know I will finish DRACULA, soon but what to read next. I have several books at the library. I guess it will come down to which one happens to be in the library when I get there. So several of the books are unavailable due to using them for school. I may have to either download them or wait until summer. One is called NATIVE SON, by Richard Wright. Designated as a youth/ children's book, murder and death, don't we see that enough in the papers. I know it is an important book, but maybe teen/ young adult. I will have to read and see how it is written. This may seem like I would banish books, but that is not the case. I just work with children and know that they sometimes have messed up lives, that sometimes are too well echoed in books. I would want a book to disappear into to forget my woes, not one to throw it into my face. So again not sure why it is in the children's section of the library.

The Storied Life of A J Fikry

THE STORIED LIFE OF A.J. FIKRY, Gabrielle Zevin published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill in 2014. The life of A. J. Fikry told by using bits and pieces of short stories, novella's and novels to write letters about his life to his adopted daughter Maya. Mr. Fikry is a bookseller on an Island only reached by boat. He is a widow and would rather not deal with the public. His wife makes him a slogan for the Island bookstore "No man is an Island, every book is a world." She had modified a quote by John Donne. The store was his wife's idea.  After her death he definitely wants to become an island and live in the world of books. I think his introverted character sets the tone at the beginning of the book.

Out of his life goes a rare book and into his life comes Maya. There are many layers to the story and I think my only criticism is that the book seemed to be in chunks. One of my book club members reckoned it being like a series of short stories inside of a novel. I think the book could have been expanded as we jump from Maya as a two year old and the next chapter we jump three years. This made me have to go back at the end of the book and figure out exactly how old she was and how long she had been with her adopted family. 

Also in this book was the e-book versus a handheld book, and bookstores having to change in order to stay up-to-date with the current trends in reading. I am a person who likes to go into a store browse all the books, read the first pages, feel the book and make my decision. It is the same thing I do in the library. But I do have an e-reader and when I am looking at a book that is rather large, it is nice to have it in a smaller format, where I do not need to hold a heavy tome in my hand. Both forms have there place but my favorite form and that of A.J. Fikry is the book. That is until later in his life, when he found the e-reader helpful.

Again as I said there are many layers in the book and I was not pleased with the ending but it was a good story. It is a life and I want to go and read all the short stories and novellas that he referenced in his letters to Maya. I have already read one and will read the others if I can find them in the library. 

Dracula- still in process

Though I seem to have been reading this book for a long time, I only started reading it in October, and then lost the book while my husband was recuperating. It was going to be my must read while he was recovering. Now all the goblins, vampires and werewolves have put away their costumes and I feel like I should stop, but I cannot. I have left our first narrator on a precipice and have now entered into the letters his fiance is writing. This means I am not far into the book. However, the book is very cleanly written, though I do not care for the drawings in the book. Maybe, I have seen too many debonair vampires to envision the character drawn in the book I am reading. If I had seen his face I would have run at the first chance. It is my main read this week, so I should be finished by weekends end, unless the book vanishes again and hides in a room seldom used.

Review: On The Road

ON THE ROAD  by Jack Kerouac, published by Penguin Books in 2011. This book was first published by Viking Press in 1957, but the copyright is dated 1955. Jack Kerouac is in his twenties when he went on this adventure with his friends, whose names were changed in the book.  These were friends he met in college, and along his journey's with 'Dean', who was really Neal Cassady.

My comments on the book would be WOW. This book is manic. I was not born until 2 years after this book was published. I grew up with the beat movement in the background, but not in my life. It was a different time and it shows in this book about adventures. Looking at our current society where everything is in place, kids go to college, life is structured around teams and taking off and doing your own thing is not widely accepted. Though in my twenties, I had a mini adventure, traveling with my friend to Europe, riding on the train to sleep from one town to the next. We stayed in Europe for 1 month, leaving everything behind. I was enamored by just carrying around a suitcase and a bunch of traveler checks to see Europe. My daughter spent 6 months in Europe and the British Isles, traveling and working through out the country. That amazed me and made me happy to know I had the means to save her if she got stuck.

In this book Sal (Jack) has his aunt who helps him out when he gets stuck, but he is always on the move. Traveling by foot, bus, hitchhiking and sometimes by the car that Dean has procured to get him. They travel back and forth to California and New York. In the last part of the book they end up traveling to Mexico, where once again Sal is abandoned by Dean.

Dean is the manic component of this trip, just talking and feeling and saying whatever comes to mind. Enjoying the ability to roam, see people in his own personal way. Looking for things lost like his father. I kept thinking he is going to crack and drive off the road, he is so manic sometimes. I think I would get tired really fast and driving that fast may have had me get off at the next stop. But they had so much fun, partying all the way, breaking hearts and connecting with people.

Different times, different feelings, a new movement called the Beat movement, that celebrated life. Good book, full of history between the manic parts. I really enjoyed the book.

Working on Three

I am still working on ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac, so far I find it fascinating, especially the way he traveled. I am hoping to be finished by the end of the week. I have currently started THE STORIED LIFE OF A J FIKRY by Gabrielle Zevin, this is my book club pick. It means I get to have book club at my house, yeah. I love October book club, I get to decorate. The third book is another 100 book challenge book DRACULA by Bram Stoker, which I love so far, it has great characterization of the towns folk.

So those are my three for this month, I hoping to finish DRACULA by Oct 31, just in time for the ghouls to come out.