Friday Friyay: Deborah Harkness' 'A Discovery of Witches'

 At the end of a stressful week, what's better than starting a book you have been dying to read for what feels like years? I'm talking, as you may have astutely gathered from the title, about Deborah Harkness' book A Discovery of Witches. It has everything I might want: witches, libraries, medieval manuscripts (!). I'm even here for a hot vampire! I have been wanting to curl up with this book for a while, so now that my latest Latin exam is behind me I think it's time to treat myself.

A richly inventive novel about a centuries-old vampire, a spellbound witch, and the mysterious manuscript that draws them together.

Deep in the stacks of Oxford's Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries-and she is the only creature who can break its spell.

I'm also very excited to hop back onto the bandwagon with Book Beginnings, hosted by Gilion over at Rose City Reader, and Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda's Voice. Now that I've kind of settled back into university life and finished off the remaining work duties, I'm hoping to spend some more time blogging and reading other blogs as well. 

But without further ado, let's get into it

BB:

'The leather-bound volume was nothing remarkable. To an ordinary historian, it would have looked no different from hundreds of other manuscripts in Oxford's Bodleian Library, ancient and worms. But I knew there was something odd about it from the moment I collected it.' 1%

I mean, talk dirty to me why don't you Deborah! For a Medievalist like myself this is pretty much porn. I'm still waiting to get into the Bodleian Library one day so i can request manuscripts to my heart's content, but for now I'll take reading about it. 

F56:

'One my fingers had revealed all they could, I replaced the encyclopedia and continued working my way through the remaining volumes in the case. There were history books, more law books, books on medicine and optics, Greek philosophy, books of accounts, the collected works of early church notables like Bernard of Clairvaux, and chivalric romances - one involving a knight who changed into a wolf once a week. But none revealed fresh information about the Knights of Lazarus.' 56%

OK, I'm officially mad at myself for waiting this long to read this book! First of, Bernard of Clairvaux was indeed notable. Secondly, I have been thinking and Harkness must be referringeither to the lay Bisclavret by Marie de France, The Lay of Melion or Sir Marrok in Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. Either way, these knights were cursed due to a betrayal of love. I wonder what that means....

As you can maybe guess, I am going to read A Discovery of Witches asap. It literally couldn't be more perfect for me. What are you reading this weekend?