KEY POINTS:
Noelle McCarthy is a journalist and broadcaster.
The book I love most... is Dracula by Bram Stoker. I first read it when I was 12 and I was completely transported. It's a bit of everything, kicking off with a fabulous travelogue before morphing into a terrifying ghost story and hurtling towards a madly exciting conclusion. Along for the ride are some loveably cartoonish characters. The real hero of the book is of course, the Count. He is an effortless seducer of everyone he meets, and easily the most compelling character in the book, with his flowery language, and flashy cloaks. Did I mention the mesmerising gaze and hairy palms? Threats to civilisation don't come much more suave.
The book I'm reading right now is... I'm at that stage where I'd much rather reread something I've loved, than something new. Lazy, probably, but there's such a different class of satisfaction that comes from reading something well remembered. The books by my bed are ones I pick up at least once a year and enjoy all over again.
At the moment the pile consists of: Jane Eyre, the most romantic novel I've ever read and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes which were some of the first stories I ever read. And Shirker, a seriously underrated novel by Auckland writer Chad Taylor.
The book I'd like to read next is... There's another pile reproaching me from the bottom of the bed. Its contents include The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton. This is the first novel by a young writer out of Wellington who is studying at The Iowa Writers' Workshop. Words such as "precocious", "astounding", "amazing" are being freely bandied where Catton is concerned. She's only 23. What I've read so far is enormously assured.
Another book in that pile is The Beautiful Fall by Alicia Drake. It's the story of Paris in the heyday of Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld. I'm happily obsessed with Karl L, mainly because there's a touch of the suave supernatural shapeshifter about him too. I'll be reading this alongside Dracula to see if my suspicions are correct.
