Drip, drip, drip....

If you've been in any chain bookstore, you've seen them: massive piles of hardbacks by Stephanie Meyer with glossy black covers and simple titles (New Moon, Twilight, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn)that give no indication of what might be inside.

I've been ignoring this phenomenon for a while, but I was stopped short by an item in USA TODAY:

"Vampires rule:Twilight author Stephenie Meyer continues to dominate USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list. Sales of her novels accounted for about 16% of all book sales tracked by the list in the first quarter of 2009. That's about one in seven books."

Whoa! One in seven?

Newspapers are dying left and right, but vampires are flying off the shelves. Is there something about the late-Bush/post-Bush era that makes vampires so popular? Or is that blood-sucking sound coming from Wall Streeters downing $700 billion (and counting) of our tax dollars for a bailout so murky we don't even know where the money went?

Any Meyer readers out there? What do you think is happening? What country are we living in, anyway?

(Tip of the hat to Media Bistro)