I love vampires. I do not wish to see them in person, but I love to read about them, especially in fiction books. I always am fascinated when authors try to twist the story of the vampire and relate them to ordinary, mortal people like ourselves.

In The Historian, a young English girl discovers an old book of her father’s with a wood carving of a dragon on the cover and several letters addressed to “my dear and unfortunate successor”. When she confronts him about it, her father begins telling her about his quest during his university days for the legend of Vlad the Impaler, or Vlad Dracula, and how these things seem to be connected to this cruel ruler. He investigated the legend when he discovered that his professor, who did the same thing 20 years earlier, as a student, has suddenly disappeared.

The professor’s disappearance led him to meet his professor’s illegitimate daughter, Helen, who helped him discover and find out the truth about Vlad the Impaler. They journeyed to Budapest and Istanbul, hoping to find more answers, and met other experts who also wanted to know more about Dracula.

Despite the historical inaccuracies, Kostova delivers a book that will inspire you to learn more about Dracula yourself and, at the same time, scared to find out more. You want to put down the book because you’re scared Dracula will just pop out of the book and haunt you in your waking moments. But at the same time, you turn the page eagerly every time, desperate to find out what will happen next.

The Historian is a great book about history and legends. But at the same time, you have to read it at your own risk. Because your sanity will really depend on it.

Do you experience certain days when you want to read a book that exactly fit the mood you had in that exact moment? I know I have. I only read certain books with certain emotions. Otherwise, I will have a hard time grasping the whole story. I have to be in the right frame of mind before I tackle any book.

Rainy Days
On rainy days, I really don’t want to be thinking too much. The weather’s down, and all I want to do is just relax. On these days, I mostly choose to read love stories. They can range from chick lit to young adult novels to unconventional love stories. One of my favorite books about love is Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. It’s about a man who, because of some gene in his body is able to time travel to different periods of time, but only between the years he was alive on Earth. On one of his time travels, he meets his future wife. He was 27 that time, she was 6. This is a love story between two people perfect for each other that literally withstood time. It’s not the conventional love story we are all familiar with, but it will still tug at your heart.

Philosophical Moments
Franz Kafka’s The Castle is the perfect book when you want to work your brain and bring it to overtime. Because with The Castle, just when you think you’ve figured everything out, Kafka twists it again and forces you to think some more. You may get a headache when reading this book because of too much thinking, but you will learn a lot from The Castle. You will learn to observe and to question. You will learn to analyze and criticize. It’s not a very complicated story, it’s about a man searching for The Castle. But the things he learns while on his journey complicates the story. If you’re ready to read this journey, then I suggest you start this at the start of the day.

Scandalous
Do you want to expect the unexpected when reading a book? Try The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. It’s a story about a young woman who is searching for her father and finding the connection between him and Dracula. It’s scary and chilling. My only advice: Don’t read this alone at night.

What about you? What are the books you like to read on certain days? What kind of days are those?