Wow, i just put a hold on _The Strain_ at my local library and there's over 100 holds on 15 copies. (I put a hold on the audio cd version...only 15 holds there. Guess most of the target audience doesn't listen to books on cd while they commute to work.) Also lots of holds on _Hunger Games_. Clearly very popular, can't believe i hadn't heard of them until here! Thanks buffistas, you have filled my dance card of creepy things to listen to while in the car.

That reminds me-- are there any librarians about?

I need to make library amends. I am one of the Buffistas who is not allowed in the library due to accidentally keeping books too long. I haven't been in over eight years. But there is a branch five minute walk from here and I feel maybe I can start to take out one book at a time. Problem is, I can't even remember if I still have books out. If I do, I can;t find them. I can't afford to pay, say more than a couple of hundred dollars. Certainly not the thousands that would be fines for eight years. Do they have payment plans?

Sophia, I thought they generally stopped charging once they reached the cost of replacing the book?

Generally, if you confess your sins and an earnest wish to make amends, the library will be forgiving. Lost books they will probably fine you for (maybe $20-$50 each, depending on what they are), but mere late fees may be waived at this point. And yes they will probably make a payment plan if the fine is substantial.

Most libraries have a cap on fines -- X dollars per item. They do so they can charge a replacement fee. Basically after so many days they assume lost.

Sophia, I thought they generally stopped charging once they reached the cost of replacing the book?

I haven't been in so long, I don't remember. When I was young, the library was pretty much next door, so I lived there. The library ladies loved me and my reading habit so much that they always waived my fines and the book limits, and I got in the habit of taking out 20 or more books at a time like it was my own personal library. Then, in my twenties, I got too depressed to return the books and now it is sort of the last place I have to make amends with as I have paid off all the creditors that I didn;t pay due to depression. I would love to give them thousands of dollars just because the library and the "library ladies" (we only had one librarian, the rest were staff) was so important to me growing up.

I am hoping it is like flea says, and that the honest desire to make amends and pay what I can helps.

The library book that I didn't find until I moved the dresser it fell under cost me the library's official cost, which was pretty much the new hardcover cost.

Tanya Huff's Blood Ties was published in 1991, two years before the first Anita Blake by two years. Yarbro's first Saint-Germain novel was published in 1978.

I've lost several library books in different cities/states and the policy always seems to be you never owe more than the cost of the book. So late fees up until you reach the cost of the book, then you effectively buy it. I suspect that if you are willing to even consider paying the replacement costs, you will be restored in good library standing. It's not like they're in it for the $$.

The whole point of Lugosi's breakthrough performance as Dracula was that it was sexualized. That's where it changes from the previous Nosferatu presentation.

Actually, part of the novel's appeal to its Victorian (and modern-day) audience were the sexual overtones. The vampire brides? The sexual overtones of all the men giving their fluids to Lucy? Racy, racy stuff, especially for that era.

I would say that Anne Rice helped popularize a certain glamourous, romantic view of vampires, and I would have to agree that her books were more of a phenomenon than the Addams Family. (As much as I don't want to.)

Also, yes, Dark Shadows, Hotel Transylvania, and The Vampire Tapestries all came out before Interview, but the only one that came close to grabbing pop culture attention in the same way was Dark Shadows.

Things I Never Knew:

Neil Gaiman named his daughter after a drag queen in a Lou Reed song.

Made. Of. Awesome.