Love at First Bite: The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula by Eric Nuzum

Vampires are everywhere, from kid cartoons to 'tween and teen novels (see previous post, below), from Sesame Street to your cereal bowl. Eric Nuzum's book The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula is, as one reviewer says, "an oddly respectful as well as hilariously irreverent" look at vampires historically and sociologically, beginning with ancient Egyptian bloodsucker Nosferatu to modern cults and uses of the vampire archetype in pop culture.

Nuzum traveled to Transylvania's hot spots for vampires and visited the burial site of Vlad Drakul, a Romanian bloody ruler whose name was adopted by Bram Stoker for his nineteenth century blockbuster novel Dracula, which melded folklore and fiction to create the archetype of the modern vampire. At one point, even trying a cocktail of (his own) blood, Nuzum examines the reasons behind the non-stop popularity of the vampire in film, literature, and the modern mind.

Chuck Klosterman, author of the cult favorite Killing Yourself to Live, calls this one "the best book on vampirism I've ever seen." With praise like this, The Dead Travel Fast sounds like the perfect book to curl up with on All Hallow's Eve.