Reading List: The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein
by Peter Ackroyd

Ackroyd has been a favorite of mine since The Plato Papers (a featured Buy This Book! on the right side of the blog), a whimsical look at the future and our ability to accurately interpret the past, plus some philosophy. Since he's a British writer who's best known for his biographies, Ackroyd doesn't get a lot of love from American readers, which is a terrible shame, because he demonstrates one of the purest loves of literature you're likely to find anywhere. As the title of this book might suggest, this time he's taking a look at Mary Shelley's famous work, interposing as he likes to do famous figures, events, and his own imagination. I've been reading Ackroyd at a tempered pace, mostly because like I said, he's difficult to outright find in the States, short of ordering him off the Internet (which isn't always the answer it seems to be, as Hub City is meant to suggest, it's remarkably easy to find other things worth reading). Happily, he's already been on the Reading List several times in the recent past. He'll show up again, too.