That thumping you're hearing is the sound of Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian totally kicking my ass. Wow, is this a fantastic book.
I was a bit wary picking this literary vampire book up, because usually "literary", at least when you're talking about horror or fantasy or science fiction, is code for "boring." (Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, I'm lookin' at you). But unlike so many authors who can write beautiful sentences, Kostova is a storyteller, and though the characters are not cardboard cutouts and the dialogue doesn't suck and the prose is beautiful, it's still a rip-roaring page turner of a mystery/ vampire novel. I read a lot of genre fiction that kind of sucks, because it's just so rewarding when it doesn't. Now, I'm only on page 250 or so, and there are like 700 pages, so it's still got time to let me down, but I don't think it will.
I'm in awe of the amazing amount of research and scholarship that went into the writing of this book, but, more than that, I'm amazed that you can pack so much history and research into a book I can't put down.
