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Unless you've been living under a rock for the last three years chances are you've heard about the Twilight series written by Stephanie Meyer. The four book series revolve around a love triangle involving a vampire, teenage girl, and werewolf set in Forks, Washington. Apparently vampires love the ever present gray that blankets much of the Pacific Northwest. The Twilight saga is so popular that libraries and bookstores threw Twilight parties when the book went on sale at midnight on August 2nd when the fourth book, "Breaking Dawn," went on sale. A movie based on the series opens in November 21st, 2008. Twilight characters Edward, Bella, Alice, and Jacob are also extremely popular Halloween costumes this year.
If you're sick of Bella and the Cullens or are looking for something similar to read I have created a reading list for you. There are plenty of great vampire booklists flying around the web (ha!) but I've narrowed it down to what I think are the best of best.
Sink your teeth into these:
Classics
Salem's Lot by Stephen King
Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and Queen of the Damned by Ann Rice
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Young Adult:
Thirsty by M.T. Anderson
In the Forests of the Night by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
The Blue Blood series by Melissa de la Cruz
The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause
Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Buffy the Vampire Slayer series by various authors
Peeps by Scott Westerfield
Graphic Novels and Comics:
Life Sucks by Jessica Abel and Gabriel
Vampire Knight by Matsuri Hino
Chibi Vampire by Yuna Kagesaki
Little Vampire and Vampire Loves by Joann Sfar
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Dark Horse Comics) by Joss Whedon
Comments
I take umbrage with your anti-under-rock-living opening line. Rocks provide shelter from the elements and provide a cool temperature during the summer. What is this Twilight? Is that the one where Gregor Samsa wakes up as a cockroach?
Thank you
Another potentially good one is Evernight by Claudia Gray. I'm on page 64, and am already sucked in.
Pun intended? I'll have to check it out.
Pun always intended.
Southern Vampire series - Sookie Stackhouse. Good stuff.
There are people who don't want complex, grammar perfect reading. They don't relate to that. I don't agree with your list of classics. Stoker's Dracula has only become popular in the late 20th Century and not so much the book but the movies. The book didn't sell well in the beginning and people buy it now because of movies. The movies vary because there has never been a copyright in the US, therefore they don't have to ask for rights and can change it however they want. Coppola did change it.. Interview with the Vampire is good but not great. I had The Vampire Lestat for a couple of years before I could actually get past the opening chapter because it was so boring. I had the book long before its huge popularity and any movies. Of the three you mentioned, I preferred Queen of the Damned. The Witching hour and that series is superior in my opinion to the vampire series. Her vampires had personalities and whined a lot, one of them the woes me Louie.. Most of the writers early on copied each other. It is a known fact about Stoker. I stopped reading vampire novels years ago because either you come up with something new like Meyer and Harris did or it is redundant. Charlaine Harris isn't the best writer but her books are not crap. They are simplistic and right to the point.
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