It was early May 2004 when I walked into the public library
and discovered Charlaine Harris’ Southern
Vampire Mysteries. I checked out Dead
Until Dark and within days, I checked out the rest of the series including Living Dead in Dallas and Club Dead. I loved them. Then I had to
wait, fortunately not very long that first year, for the next book to come out
in the series. I purchased Dead to the
World and kept anticipating these books each May, published right around
the time my coursework was concluding before summer break. I even pre-ordered
the books at Borders, which I never do for any books… still! The clerks at
Borders would tease me because many of them knew that I was writing my doctoral
dissertation at the table in the café while sipping chocolate coffee. I miss
Borders but that’s another story.
The Southern
Vampire Mysteries were fun; Sookie didn’t just fall down, she fought back;
and, she owned a house, something that I desperately wanted to do back then.
Some of the storylines were silly; others were quite serious. I loved them all.
When True Blood was even hinted at as
a possibility, I went out and bought a television and later figured out how to
order cable, specifically HBO. The television series was very different but I
enjoyed it so much in the beginning and then like a loyal fan, watched it to
the very end and cried. I kept reading those Sookie books, including the novellas
and short stories that were offered usually around winter break.
I’m not a book series person. In fact, now if I walk
into a bookstore to find a description noting a trilogy I abandon the book.
Yet, every now and then I’ve fallen into a series. The Southern Vampire Mysteries was one of them. They were there published
at the exact time I needed a break from academia and needed to lose myself into
a story. I don’t come from a family of academics. In fact, my parents did not attend
college. But, they were readers. My mom read, and still reads, novel after
novel. My dad was more of a non-fiction devourer of texts. He also has a
photographic memory, which I did not inherit sadly. Books were supposed to be
fun but in grad school everything changed. I no longer seemed to have time to
read for pleasure and when I did sneak in some reading I always felt guilty
about it since I should have been reading some Proust or whatnot. The only time
that I was able to comfortably put down the academic texts was at the start of
summer break.
I wish I could go back to recreate the feeling but
just as one can never step into the same river twice, one can never recreate
the magic of reading a book for the first time. Nevertheless, with so many
books stacked up in my to-be-read pile, I finally have my very own copy of Dead Until Dark and I’m planning to give
it another go.
Some of my favorite books of all time were library
books. Oh, I wish that I had stolen that copy of Dracula the first time I read the book. I remember the cover and if I think hard enough I can
almost smell the book. Old books have the best smell. Fortunately, my new copy
of Dead Until Dark is pretty much the
original cover art, which I adore. Now, I even have a signed copy!
Yesterday, I attended the 5th Annual Suffolk
Mystery Authors Festival about two hours from my home. For the price of a
$20 ticket, which also offered a tote bag full of free books, I attended the
VIP Reader event right before the festival was open to the public. There, I met
Christine Trent (and may have been a little stalkerish), as well as Julie
Moffett, Alice Loweecey, and Aimée Hix.
For me, the most exciting part was
meeting and thanking Charlaine Harris for keeping reading fun during a time
that I really needed it to be light and fun.
