Another book I recently read was Dracula by Bram Stoker.
I greatly enjoyed reading this book. It is the vampire book par excellence for good reason. The book is a collage of diary entries, telegrams, newspaper articles, letters, and other fragments of text.
I read the Barnes & Noble edition. My only complaint about these editions are the endnotes for the book can give away part of the story earlier than the actual text. The good part is they provide a lot of context for the terms and explain things about the era.
As I read the novel I tried to imagine Victorian England. It is a place I have visited before by similar means. One aspect I found interesting was how people communicated by letters. People (at least in the novel) would write letters and regularly communicate on a deep level. Also in the social interaction realm, how marriage proposals happened was odd. One of the characters received three proposals, at least one of them from a man she did not know very well.
Sometimes when I am reading I will come across a name that I know from general knowledge will become important. When Professor Van Helsing is first mentioned I knew immediately he would be drawn into the action and led the fight against Dracula. This same feeling occurred in a previous book when I read about a Mr. Hyde. In one way it is bad because this gives me a skewed perspective when reading. In another way it adds excitement because I am watching every move a character makes from their first appearance.
One day I might develop a rating system for books. Until then I will say you should read about the Count.
Dracula
Bram Stoker
400 pages
Barnes & Noble
7/25 - 8/1
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