Books I read in 2001-part 2
Explore Anne Rice’s *The Vampire Armand*, George MacDonald’s *The Princess and the Goblin*, and more in this curated list of fiction books read in 2001. Discover classic vampire lore and timeless fantasy in this second part of my 2001 reading journey.
Book
The Princess and the Goblin
by George MacDonald
Princess Irene's discovery of a secret stair to the top turret of the castle leads to a wonderful revelation. At the same time, the miner's son Curdie overhears a fiendish plot by the goblins who live below the mountain. But it will take all their wit and courage, and the help of Irene's magic ring, to make sense of their separate knowledge and foil the goblins' schemes.
Book
The Vampire Armand
by Anne Rice
In the latest installment of The Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice summons up dazzling worlds to bring us the story of Armand - eternally young, with the face of a Botticelli angel. Armand, who first appeared in all his dark glory more than twenty years ago in the now-classic Interview with the Vampire, the first of The Vampire Chronicles, the novel that established its author worldwide as a magnificent storyteller and creator of magical realms. Now, we go with Armand across the centuries to the Kiev Rus of his boyhood - a ruined city under Mongol dominion - and to ancient Constantinople, where Tartar raiders sell him into slavery. And in a magnificent palazzo in the Venice of the Renaissance we see him emotionally and intellectually in thrall to the great vampire Marius, who masquerades among humankind as a mysterious, reclusive painter and who will bestow upon Armand the gift of vampiric blood. As the novel races to its climax, moving through scenes of luxury and elegance, of ambush, fire, and devil worship to nineteenth-century Paris and today's New Orleans, we see its eternally vulnerable and romantic hero forced to choose between his twilight immortality and the salvation of his immortal soul.
