Welcome to The Historian Read Along...

iStockPhoto.com with text editing provided by Digital Graces Photography

It all began on a quiet afternoon.  Coffee and a Book Chick and Tedious & Brief thought of hosting a read along for those readers who have either read The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, or have always wanted to read it.  Considering there are so many amazing challenges that are starting now for Halloween, we thought this might be a creepily fantastic addition to whatever you're currently preparing for without feeling like it's too much -- see the schedule down below, about 100 pages each week for six weeks!  We can do that, right?

From the book 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...

Doesn't this sound incredible?  Coffee and a Book Chick first read this five years ago, and this is the first read for Tedious & Brief!  Here's an overall schedule and we'd like to start it in two weeks so that we can break the book up into a little over 100 pages each week and to finish by Sunday, October 31st for Halloween.


Schedule
Sept 20 to Sept 26 -- Chapters 1 through 14
Sept 27 to Oct 3 -- Chapters 27 through 39
Oct 11 to Oct 17 -- Chapters 40 through 48
Oct 18 to Oct 24 -- Chapters 49 through 66
Oct 25 to Oct 31 -- Chapters 67 through Epilogue

We can have a discussion starting on Sunday nights and each section can take us through that week -- thoughts to creep you out, ideas to make you think "what if," and overall a general discussion each Sunday evening as the weather gets colder for some of us, and to think, maybe... just maybe...Dracula might exist?

Interested?
If you're interested, all you have to do is follow the site, and grab the button on the sidebar to post to your blog!  Please feel free to blog about it to your fantastic followers and let us know!!

Looking forward to Sept 20th to start the read along and the first chit chat by the fireside will be Sunday, Sept. 26th!!

Signed,
Coffee and a Book Chick
Tedious & Brief