Natalie Bakopoulos has that rare gift, the ability to imagine a traumatic historical event in the form of individual lives and ordinary details. The Green Shore is compelling, personal, and full of quietly real moments.

As a historian, I have learned that, in fact, not everyone who reaches back into history can survive it. And it is not only reaching back that endangers us; sometimes history itself reaches inexorably forward for us with its shadowy claws.

Sometimes people damage paintings or sculpture because they love it. They throw their arms around a statue in a fit of hysterical passion and it falls over.

For me, Dracula has always been associated with travel and beautiful historical places.

Every writer hopes his or her book will be its own thing.

And how could anyone consent to give up the smell of open books, old or new?

I've noticed Dracula was often as practical a fellow as he was a nasty one.