Blood Read: The Vampire As Metaphor in Contemporary Culture
Joan Gordon & Veronica Hollinger
ISBN: 0812216288
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Pub. Date: November 1997

Synopsis:
Over the past century the figure of the vampire has undergone many transformations--from Bram Stoker's original Dracula to Anne Rice's VAMPIRE CHRONICLES. BLOOD READ examines a wide range of vampire narratives from the perspective of both writers and scholars and shows how these transformations reflect ongoing changes in postmodern culture .

Synopsis:
Karen Elizabeth Gordon is no ordinary grammarian, and her works --are no ordinary books of grammar. A special edition of the 1984 classic, The Deluxe Transitive Vampire is populated by a wickedly decadent cast of gargoyles, mastodons, murderous debutantes, and, yes, vampires (both transitive and otherwise), who cavort and consort in order to illustrate basic principles of grammar. The sentences are intoxicating--"How he loved to dangle his participles, brush his forelock off his forehead with his foreleg, and gaze into the aqueous depths"--but the rules and their explanations are as sound as any you might find in Strunk and White. Outlining the building blocks of the English language, from parts of speech to phrases and clauses, The Deluxe Transitive Vampire goes on to exorcise such grammatical demons as passive voice, fragments, comma splices, and run-on sentences. At last, a handbook of grammar you will actually want to read. In the words of Gordon's preface, "Howling, exploding, crackling, flickering with new life-forms, and drunk on fresh blood (some of mine is certainly missing), this deluxe edition reminds us on every page that words, too, have hoofs and wings to transport us far and deep."