I’m so annoyed at myself. I learnt about this weeks ago and planned to share it and then I completely got side-tracked and forgot about it. I was going to cut my losses but I am only a day or two late so I am charging ahead.
There is a fascinating project happening from Daily Dracula where the entirety of Bram Stoker’s Dracula will be sent to your inbox in snippets throughout the year coinciding with the time frame of the book. As the website states:
Bram Stoker’s Dracula is an epistolary novel – it’s made up of letters, diaries, telegrams, newspaper clippings – and every part of it has a date. The whole story happens between May 3 and November 10. So: Dracula Daily will post a newsletter each day that something happens to the characters, in the same timeline that it happens to them.
I think this is fascinating. You can read about the events in the story as it’s happening to the characters and because it’s in small segments and through various formats you can experience in a unique way. As I say, because I am late doing this, and not sending it around last week like I had hoped, you’ll miss the start in your inbox. However! You can catch up on the posts you’ve missed on the website archives, or read the beginning of the book and catch up before relying on those handy inbox arrivals to get your daily Dracula fix.
This is something that happened last year and the individual posts are available on the website so you can read them there, catch up any you miss in future and see how it went down last year. It might be a good place to start, not only because I am late in telling you about it, but you can see if the structure is something you’d want in comparison to having it in the book or another medium. The best part is because they’ll be coming to your inbox you can read each one as it comes or save up a few and do them in groups, read at your own pace.
Because of the way the story is written there won’t be an entry every day, and naturally they’ll vary in length, but if you’ve always wanted to read Dracula and felt daunted by the size of think it’s too intense, maybe this could be your way in.
Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now…
While telling the adventures of Blinky Bill, a naughty little boy in the form of a koala, the stories also present messages of conservation. Blinky Bill is known for his mischievousness and his love for his mother. In general throughout the stories he does things that are realistic for koalas as well as things that child readers would like to do. Dorothy Wall tells the stories directly to the children and Blinky often interacts with the readers in an introduction. Her dedications are often to ‘All the Kind Children’, with her own son Peter and other common Australian names of the 1930s appearing. The books are also fully illustrated by Dorothy Wall herself.
While telling the adventures of Blinky Bill, a naughty little boy in the form of a koala, the stories also present messages of conservation. Blinky Bill is known for his mischievousness and his love for his mother. In general throughout the stories he does things that are realistic for koalas as well as things that child readers would like to do. Dorothy Wall tells the stories directly to the children and Blinky often interacts with the readers in an introduction. Her dedications are often to ‘All the Kind Children’, with her own son Peter and other common Australian names of the 1930s appearing. The books are also fully illustrated by Dorothy Wall herself.
While telling the adventures of Blinky Bill, a naughty little boy in the form of a koala, the stories also present messages of conservation. Blinky Bill is known for his mischievousness and his love for his mother. In general throughout the stories he does things that are realistic for koalas as well as things that child readers would like to do. Dorothy Wall tells the stories directly to the children and Blinky often interacts with the readers in an introduction. Her dedications are often to ‘All the Kind Children’, with her own son Peter and other common Australian names of the 1930s appearing. The books are also fully illustrated by Dorothy Wall herself.
Lost in a Good Book 