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Speaking Volumes

Keeping you up-to-date on what's happening at your library. We invite you to join in the conversation!
OCTOBER 8, 2008
Just a bite

I have to admit that I have always liked vampires.  Though at the same 
time, it would seem that if you know one vampire, you know them all.  
However, in a literary context this isn't necessarily so.

Sure, there are the 'classics' -- Stoker's Dracula,  King's Salem's Lot 
and of course Rice's Interview with a Vampire.  In Young Adult books 
you can't sweep your cape without hitting a well known title, such as 
Meyer's Twilight Series, Reese's Vampire High, Shan's Cirque Du Freak 
Series, Smith's Tantalize,  De la Cruz's Blue Bloods, Anderson's 
Thirsty, to name a few.

But not all vampire books are alike, and it is not simply in that some 
vampires are 'good' and some 'evil'.    Some are truly not what you 
would expect.

For younger readers:

   Bunnicular: A Rabbit Tale of Mystery by James and Deborah Howe tells the story of  a odd little bunny that sucks down his veggies.

  The Ink Drinker by Eric Sanvoisin is a tale of a weird pale 
stranger who drinks books!

In Daniel Manus Pinkwater's Wempires, Jonathan decides he wants to be  a vampire after watching a horror movie.  But his attempt is rather  amusing as among other things he  puts salad oil on his hair.

One of my personal favorites is Vampire Kittens Of Count Dracula (Scaredy Cats) by George E. Stanley.   The local pet store has a special order kitten that gets delivered to  the wrong house.  The title's Board Book format suggests its for very  young readers, but that seems a little off as one can tell by the cover.

When Buffy the Vampire Slayer arrived on the scene a decade or so ago 
I was thrilled.  Not only did slayers start getting some attention, 
but finally a strong young woman was fighting back.  Buffy paved the 
way for many great and unfortunately many trite books.


Still, for older readers the vampire theme has inspired some unique reads.

  In Scott Westfield's Peeps  Cal Thompson is a carrier of a parasite 
that causes vampirism, and must hunt down all of the girlfriends he  has unknowingly infected, a clear parallel between vampirism and  social disease.


  In  The Cowboy and the Vampire: a unique romance, Clark Hays and  Kathleen McFall do offer an unusual blend of two genres:  horror and 
western.  Imagine John Wayne meets Mini Harker (Dracula's love).


  For a more light hearted take and another female vampire, Christopher Moore's Bloodsucking Fiends is very amusing.  The evil vampire in this  tale ends up stuck in a stone turtle.


  The male vampire in Fat White Vampire Blues by Andrew Fox is equally  as amusing, as he struggles with his vampire state in New Orleans 
while dealing with girl problems and his mother.


Vampires are no strangers to gra


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Comments

Mercedes said, on Oct. 13 at 7:22AM
I just finished a great vampire book! I'm a huge fan of Terry Pratchett and his Discworld series (and his YA discworld books as well) and I'm reading through the Discworld series in order. There are over 30 books in the series (and the library has almost all of them) and I'm reading them in order. They each stand on their own as a novel but there are recurring characters - Death, the Watch, and the Witches. The books that feature the Witches are probably my favorite and Carpe Jugulum (which this post is really about) has them in all their glory. It is also a book about vampires who are trying to be modern by conditioning themselves to withstand all the old ways of killing a vampire - garlic, lemons, daylight, etc. This will then enable them to take over the world, or at least the kingdom of Lancre, but the Witches aren't having with it. I probably say this everytime I finish a Discworld book but I think this was my favorite!

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