There’s a super article up on how Twilight changed the way we now look at vampires.

“Sparkling bodies aside, when Twilight came out, vampires were starting to be seen as something other than evil. They were tortured souls that didn’t ask for their fates. They were human beings that happened to be dead. They had feelings, loved ones, and a desire to be human again. Stephenie Meyer crossed a line that was never crossed before, if it was, it didn’t have the same impact as her story had. For the first time, a human fell in love with a monster… a conceptual Beauty and the Beast story, except this time the beast stays a beast. Bella had to learn to love Edward, though it wasn’t hard, and had to except him for the undead being that he was. In the same token, Edward had to take every bit of strength he had not to kill her.

Along with putting vampires in a better light, Twilight also paid homage to the werewolf, shape-shifter actually, showing that they were aggressive but very protective of family, friends, loved ones, and members of their tribe. Though werewolves could practically match the strengths of a vampire and could actually kill them, Twilight brought the two together by spinning a tale of love that was strong enough for them to risk their lives and work together.”

There’s some really good though here. Check it out on Suite 101

According to The Guardian, the first four books in the Twilight Saga were among the 100 most borrowed library books in England in 2010. They decided to analyze why Twilight Saga books and others that made the list are so popular. Interesting concept, even if they seem slightly off in their Twilight description as being laced with crime.

“Trying to explain why the wartime British public were turning to “brutal and sordid” American crime novels, George Orwell suggested that pulp fiction offered “a distilled version of the modern political scene” in an era of “mass bombing of civilians, the use of hostages, torture [and] secret prisons”, and “systematic falsification of records and statistics”. The average man, he proposed, “wants the current troubles of the world to be translated into a simple story about individuals”.

Some such theory is needed, 65 years later, to account for the stunning appetite for evil evinced by people popping into their local libraries, as revealed again by the latest data released by Public Lending Right (PLR), covering the period from mid-2009 to mid-2010. Of the 100 most borrowed titles, close to two-thirds are crime novels or thrillers, including all the top 10, and others (such as Stephenie Meyer‘s crime-laden vampire romances) are in related genres.”

See more on The Guardian.