Bram Stoker really started a trend when he wrote Dracula in 1897. Who could have guessed that over the next century, vampire books would become a whole sub-genre of horror literature?  The Strain (the first book of a new trilogy) by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan is the latest entry in the field.

In recent decades, both movies and books have given us any number of new and different slants on the bloodsuckers we find so fascinating (and scary).  We’ve had comic vampires (remember Love at First Bite?) and romantic vampires (the Stephenie Meyer books). We’ve also had vampires with a yen for self-revelation (see Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice). You name it, we’ve had it. I’ve not yet run into a book about vampire space aliens, but I’m sure they’re out there somewhere.

As for The Strain, it goes back to original principles. The vampires portrayed in this book are relentlessly predatory and downright terrifying. Humans have blood and vampires drink it. Period. With the crowd of bloodsuckers in The Strain, there’s no such thing as skipping a meal.

Paradoxically though, The Strain is also a remarkably modern take on the vampire myths. The hero is a doctor who works for the Centers for Disease Control.  As a scientist, he begins with no more belief in vampires than he might have in the Tooth Fairy.  However, as a scientist, the existence of the undead becomes utterly logical to him when he discovers there’s nothing magic or supernatural involved in their creation. What is involved is a virus. Unfortunately it is a very powerful and fast acting virus. Neither Holy Water, the Cross, nor antibiotics will work against it.

The book begins with a plane full of dead passengers landing at Kennedy Airport. Only they’re not exactly dead. As this last reality becomes clear, the action spreads to the rest of the New York metropolitan area while the doctor and his associates attempt to contain what has quickly become an epidemic.

How do they deal with it? Can they deal with it? Maybe yes and maybe no. It will take two more books before the reader can know for certain.  Personally, I can’t wait for book two.

Joe McHugh – Administration Office

Updating Broadway with one stroke, Jonathan Larson’s Rent manages to combine rock music and musical theater to create a modern, vibrant, and challenging show that is great fun to watch. Focusing on a community of artists living on the lower East Side of New York City, Rent documents their efforts to survive and produce relevant and worthwhile art. Meanwhile, their community struggles to deal with gentrification in the neighborhood and the spread of AIDS at the close of the 1980s.

Rent recently closed on Broadway after twelve years and more than five thousand performances. The final performances were filmed, and Rent filmed live on Broadway looks and feels like a stage play. The bare set, with band platform and multi-purpose tables, comes alive as the actors inhabit various locations. A great final performance of "Seasons of Love" unites members of the original cast with the current performers.

After almost a decade as a successful musical, Rent was adapted into a movie, directed by Chris Columbus and released in 2005. This slightly abridged form of the story includes many of the original Broadway cast, as well as Tracie Thoms as Joanne, and Rosario Dawson as Mimi, both of whom excel. The movie seamlessly blends theater and cinema, and takes up more space to tell the story. Thoms and Idina Menzel’s version of “Take Me or Leave Me,” for instance, is staged as a walk and talk that fills up an entire building.

You can listen to Rent too, of course. The original Broadway cast recording dates from 1996, and features, amongst others, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Anthony Rapp, Jesse L. Martin, Taye Diggs and Menzel. This selection includes the complete show, and spans two discs. The movie soundtrack omits a few numbers from the stage show, but includes all of the major songs. If you’d like to know more about the history of the show, take a look at the libretto for Rent, which includes comprehensive behind-the-scenes information, photographs, and details about its development in addition to the lyrics and script for the early performances. Watch or listen to Rent today. You’ll love it.

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

Sloane Crosley’s I Was Told There’d Be Cake is a catalog of the trials of life in modern Manhattan. This isn’t Carrie Bradshaw’s Manhattan either, although Bradshaw’s world can be glimpsed on occasion from a distance. Crosley’s personal observations on the journey from childhood to independent adult are biting, incisive, and true, yet painfully funny in a confessional way. What’s new here is that there’s a conscience and brutal honesty behind the Seinfeld-like yuks. Crosley bares her soul to expose the difficulties of life as a twenty-something in the new millennium, somehow finding humor in the ruins.

Crosley’s short essays deal with episodes from her life. Just for something to say, she nervously hits up new boyfriends for ponies, and then twinges with karmic angst after the breakup as she decides what to do with the toys she’s been given. She walks us through the misunderstood gift of baked goods she presented to her boss, against the larger backdrop of 9/11. In true “Manhattan” mode, she details a disastrous moving day in which a journey three blocks north may as well have been a coast-to-coast trek, and tests her social conscience as she considers volunteer assignments and deals with one that goes disastrously (but hysterically) wrong.

Walking the line between comedy and tragedy, romance and heartbreak, Crosley muses on friendships, relationships, religion, work, and childhood with a unique and fresh voice that is both funny and strangely unsettling. For a skewed take on singledom in Manhattan, check out Sloane Crosley’s I Was Told There’d Be Cake.

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to grow up in a family with a multitude of siblings, 12 to be exact? The constant chaotic vying for attention competes with the everpresent clutter of clothing, mismatched socks, and mounds of school books – not to mention the unending hum of major/minor squabbles. James McBride’s poignant memoir The Color of Water offers a panoramic view – from the Depression through the turbulent 60s and beyond — inside the life of one such remarkable family.

In writing The Color of Water, the author attempts to explore his Jewish mother’s hidden past. As a result of his persistence, McBride’s mother Rachel tells her story, simultaneously allowing McBride to gain a greater understanding of himself. Rachel was the daughter of a strict, distant Orthodox Jewish rabbi and a loving, meek mother. Years of childhood sexual abuse led Rachel to run away and literally reinvent herself. How she raised her brood with a surprising blend of "chutzpah" and grace was truly amazing to me.

After reading McBride’s latest book Song Yet Sung, I decided to purchase The Color of Water on audiobook. Told from alternating points of view by McBride and his mother (Momee), actors Andre Braugher and Lainie Kazan create an unforgettable audio production.

This memoir had me quietly crying one minute and laughing the next. Pick up a copy of the book or the playaway – I guarantee you will be moved.

Elaine Johnson – Central Library

It has been years since the publication of Sister Souljah’s last literary masterpiece The Coldest Winter Ever. Souljah, a gifted storyteller and social commentator, is much wiser than her earthly years. As an educator/advisor to at-risk urban youth, she is an ardent spokesperson. Her latest offering Midnight: A Gangster Love Story represents a fictional account of a handsome Sudanese youth’s complex adjustment to the often brutal life in the slums of New York City.

When just seven years old, Mayonaka and his pregnant mother Uumma are sent to America by his father to avoid the political strife and human devastation in Sudan. Prior to the civil unrest, their family enjoyed a life of wealth and relative tranquility. Mayonaka’s father, educated abroad, was a brilliant advisor to Sudan’s Prime Minister. His father taught him how to conduct himself with dignity, guard his family at all costs, and practice the Muslim faith.

Once in New York, Mayonaka is responsible for protecting his mother and baby sister, while dealing with the cultural shock of American urban life (gang violence, disrespect of the elderly, crooked police). Through all of his trials, Midnight – dubbed this name as he frequently played basketball well into the night — remains calm, thoughtful, and courageous. While working at a fish market in New York’s Chinatown, 14-year-old Midnight meets 16-year-old Akemi, a stylish Japanese student in the U. S. on an art scholarship. The two forge an instant friendship, although Akemi does not speak English.

Midnight will send chills up and down your spine. The more you read, the more you will be shocked and amazed. The author cleverly uses the first person narrative to heighten suspense. Because of the myriad of issues that are covered, this is a wonderful novel for book discussion.

Excerpt:
"Everything you have ever seen or heard about Africa is wrong. My African grandfather taught me that the storyteller is the most powerful person in the world after God. My grandfather said be careful who you listen to and what they are saying. The storyteller is clever and masterful and has already decided exactly what he wants you to think and believe."

Author Sister Souljah scores another hit right out of the ball park with her latest tour de force. Awesome! Bravo! (Due to its range and explicit language, Midnight is recommended for sophisticated readers.)
 
Elaine Johnson – Central Library

F. Paul Wilson 

Can the tale of a repairman be worth a whole book, let alone a series? It depends on what the man repairs, of course. While his clients tend to be honest enough, Repairman Jack fixes the kinds of problems that they might be extremely reluctant to bring to the police.

The Tomb, the first in a series of Repairman Jack books by F. Paul Wilson, starts off in a deceptively slow and prosaic manner. In The Tomb, Jack is asked to recover a necklace. It sounds like a pretty unrewarding job, and, against his better judgment, Jack accepts with an “I’ll give it a try” shrug.

One thing leads to another and a simple task develops unexpected complications. By the midpoint of the book, the events that are happening get a bit strange and surprisingly dangerous. Meanwhile, the pace of the book has moved from a walk, through a trot, and well into a full-scale gallop. At this point, you just cannot put down The Tomb or any other Repairman Jack book.

As the series progresses, Jack finds himself ever more deeply involved in a struggle with a nonhuman force referred to as the ”Otherness.” Like the peeling of an onion, Jack’s world is gradually revealed volume by volume. Indeed, It’s not until the third book Conspiracies that Jack himself first hears about the Otherness, a force behind the events of The Tomb and its sequel.

Ultimately the series is scheduled to end with some sort of Gotterdammerung. There are a few more Repairman Jack novels to go before we find out the final (and still uncertain) fate of both Jack and the Otherness. I’m dying to find out. If you start reading Wilson’s series, I guarantee you will be hooked, as well.

Joe McHugh – Administration

Another series by author Meg Cabot is a trio about Heather Wells, a former teen pop star, now an assistant dorm (um, residence hall) director at the fictional New York College in New York City. Heather starts off in Size 12 is Not Fat at her new job working with undergraduates who rollerblade in the halls, their helicopter parents, and fending off the question, "Didn’t you used to be somebody?" Her place of work earns the name "Death Dorm" after a girl is found dead due to elevator surfing. Heather is sure that it wasn’t an accident, but even she has difficulty convincing her private investigator landlord, Cooper Cartwright. Yes, he is the brother of her former fiance, Jordan Cartwright, and the son of the executive who terminated Heather’s recording contract.

In Size 14 is Not Fat Either, Heather has a new boss, but the semester starts off poorly when a cheerleader’s head is found in a pot in the cafeteria. And, as if that’s not enough, her ex-fiance wants her to go to his wedding and her father, who just finished a prison term, ends up renting a room from Heather’s landlord, Cooper, who also happens to be the object of Heather’s unrequited love! The fraternities on the campus play a big part, as does the undergraduate who has a crush on Heather.

In the third title of the series, Big Boned, Heather has a boyfriend who’s also her remedial math professor. They are keeping the relationship quiet, or think they are, but that is soon buried under a graduate student strike, the death of her newest boss, and the news that her ex-boyfriend is going to be a father!

Cabot has a fun take on the lives of self-centered college students and on Heather’s trying to find her place in her new life and work world. While not a meat-and-potatoes kind of book, we all need the whipped cream on top of our frappuccinos occasionally. I listened to these on CD and they made the commute fly by.

Susan Stonesifer – Miller Branch