Let down by Amazon...

Although Florian Kührer kindly wrote of this blog that, 'an diesem Blog geht kaum eine einschlägige Publikation aus dem deutschen, englischen und französischen Sprachraum vorbei' (on this blog hardly any book in German, English or French is overlooked), I must say that I am let down by Amazon in helping me keep track of new books. Although they send me e-mails like the one above, they seem to mainly recommend vampire fiction, because I just found a couple of recent books that I had unfortunately not been notified about.

First up is Heiko Haumann's Dracula: Leben und Legende (C. H. Beck, €8.95) which not only deals with the 'historical' Dracula, Vlad Draculea, but also with vampire beliefs and the construction of Dracula as a vampire. A sample text is available here.

Next up is what looks like a new edition of Hagen Schaub's Blutspuren: Die Geschichte der Vampire from 2008, this time called Vampire. Dem Mythos auf der Spur and published by Marix Verlag (320 pages, €7.95). You can find a sample text here.

From Vergangenheitsverlag a cultural history of the vampire by Leah Levine is going to be published this May: Blut ist ein besonderer Saft: Eine Kulturgeschichte der Vampire (180 pages, €14.90). However, I think there is good reason to be cautious, as Amazon describes the author as a well-known German witch and a founder of a school for witches in Hannover! She, of course, has a web site, so you can judge for yourself.

The cover of Levine's book is based on the famous painting The Vampire by Philip Burne-Jones, and curiously this is also used on the cover of another new book: Vampire: Mythische Wesen der Nacht (Belser Verlag, €29.95) by Joachim Nagel, author of Femme Fatale: Faszinierende Frauen. The book appears to be a 128 pages, fully illustrated, large format history of vampires from antiquity to Twilight: 'Der Kulturhistoriker Joachim Nagel spürt dem dämonischen Phänomen, seinem atmosphärischen Zauber und seinen erotischen Verheißungen nach. Auf dieser Reise in die Nacht begegnen wir Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee und Robert Pattinson, aber auch der Comic-Heldin Vampirella und literarischen Vorgängerinnen wie Clarimonde und Carmilla. Gemälde von Goya, Füssli, Munch u. a. bebildern dieses längst überfällige Panorama des Vampir-Mythos.'

And these are only some of the new books. Others will be mentioned or reviewed as I get hold of them.