Fang-tastic Reading
A word of warning:
There is a dangerous addiction threatening commuters…
I am one of London’s thousands of people who face nearly an hour-long commute into work every morning. It is an absolute pleasure squeezing onto an already crowded train that is guaranteed to be delayed whilst you are stuck under someone’s arm pit in a pose your yoga instructor would congratulate you on.
Often, a good book is the antidote to this grueling journey. Just make sure that you choose carefully, my friends! Do not make the same mistake as me and half of the girls in the annascholz office by getting yourself entangled in The Southern Vampire Mysteries series of novels by Charlaine Harris (the books the TV series True Blood is based on).
Once you read the first couple of chapters of the first book, Dead Until Dark, you are a goner — you will not be able to put it down again. Although it is written for a young audience (younger than yours truly, anyway) and can be a bit repetitive, the telepathic heroin, Sookie, is bright as a button. And Vampire Bill is so dark and mysterious, you will be spell-bound in no time.
Inevitably, you will speed through the nine books of the series with a compulsion to ditch even your favourite TV show (unless it is True Blood, of course). You will find yourself telling friends you’d rather not go out tonight because you just want to get back to your book. The worst thing is that, once you have read the last page of the last book, Dead and Gone, you will start pining for Ms Harris to hurry up and publish the next one (or even better- the next nine) so you can feed your addiction some more. So please, I beg of you: do not even start this vicious cycle…Step away from the book shelf (or the Amazon link)! Now!
Note to the already afflicted: The next installment, “Dead in the Family,” will be published in June 2010… The countdown begins!
-Stefanie
