So it’s nowhere near Halloween, but I just finished reading the third book, The Night Eternal, in the vampire series from Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan. (It started with The Strain.) It got me thinking about how much I love a good vampire book (or movie), and how I love the way authors and directors play with the enduring myth of vampires. It was kind of cool, for instance, that Stephenie Meyer’s first foray, Twilight, was set in the Pacific Northwest, where there’s quite a bit of rainfall and the landscape is just, well, dark. Or how about the way Anne Rice featured a vampire giving a long, involved interview about his life in (what else?) Interview with the Vampire? One of my favorite modern adaptations, Stephen King’s ’Salem’s Lot, does a great job of turning a small, picturesque New England Town into a blood-soaked nightmare for all but a handful of its inhabitants. And, for those of us who caught it on television way back when, it was nice to see David Soul of Starsky and Hutch take on the evil vampire. And, speaking of cinematic versions of great vampire stories, Will Smith did a phenomenal job of acting opposite a beautiful German shepherd in I Am Legend, adapted from Richard Matheson’s spooky tale.

With the exception of Starsky and Hutch, you can get all of the above titles (books and movies) at Queens Library. While you’re here, don’t forget the granddad of them all: Bram Stoker’s magnificent Dracula (though I would skip Francis Ford Coppola’s film adaptation). Happy hunting, sanguivores! (Full disclosure: I stole that last word from The Night Eternal).