Macy Halford, writing on the New Yorker website about the Kindle, said, “When I read a book all the way through to the end, I want the evidence stuffed and mounted on my bookshelf.”

I feel a lot the same way. I enjoy finishing a book, and then finding just the right spot for it on a bookshelf (we have five bookshelves in our living room, two in our bedroom, and one in the computer room). I’ve read four books on my Nook so far, but when I’m done, there’s no holy Placing of the Book ritual.

Halford continues, “My suspicion is that people who prefer e-readers use them primarily to read Harlan Coben, and are happy to be able to delete the physical evidence.”

True, to an extend. I’ll use the Nook for books that I would probably just return to a used bookstore, or to which I don’t care to designate precious shelf space. My Black Lizard, mysteries, for example–I’ll continue reading the dead-tree versions. And I’ll continue experiencing the post-epilogue-ish ceremonial Placing of the Book.

Last Friday, I was in a Christian bookstore shopping for my wife. As I perused the fiction racks, I felt bothered by how many books dealt with the Amish. Series after series focused on these people who just want to be left alone.

My niece Paula, who manages a Christian bookstore, told me that 1 out of every 5 Christian fiction books that are sold deal with the Amish. Christian capitalism at work. Evangelical publishers and authors are making tens of millions of dollars off of the Amish. How much money do you think the Amish get out of it?

As if that’s not enough, there is the “Beverly Lewis Amish Heritage Cookbook”, the “Pocket Guide to Amish Life,” “Amish Proverbs: Words of Wisdom from the Simple Life,” “The Simple Joys of the Amish Life,” and many more.

This is just creepy. It’s a blatant form of exploitation, and I find it disturbing.

Pam and I started watching “The Vampire Diaries” via Netflix. I’ve always enjoyed vampire lore, and how people render the vampire story in movies and on TV. Pam and I watched all of the Buffy and Angel series, and have really liked the Twilight movies. Now we’re big fans of “The Vampire Diaries.” The final disc in Season 1 arrived yesterday.

With vampires in my head, I read three vampire books. Two of them, like the Twilight books, are categorized as juvenile fiction. If you look in a bookstore, the juvenile shelves are filled with books involving vampires. I picked out three series that seemed promising, and read the first book in each to see if I might want to continue reading that series. In all three cases, the answer is a yes, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. All were quick reads.

“A Living Nightmare” (2002), Book 1 of the Cirque du Freak series, by Darren Shan. Darren Shan’s main character is Darren Shan, a high schooler who stumbles across the vampire world at an underground freak show called Cirque du Freak. I don’t get why he uses his own name, as if it’s a mock true story, but whatever.

Not a whole lot happens in the first book, but we do get well acquainted with Darren Shan (the character), and learn a few things about how Darren Shan (the author) will develop the vampire legend. Darren wants to become a vampire, and arranges to join the circus as a vampire’s assistant, sort of a “vampire in training” role.

It was an engaging book, and a quick read. There are 12 books in this series, divided into four trilogies.

“Eighth Grade Bites” (2007), Book 1 in the Chronicles of Vladimir Tod, by Heather Brewer. There are 5 books in this series, one for each year of school, ending with “Twelfth Grade Kills.”

The protagonist, Vladimir Tod, was born a vampire. His father was a vampire, his mother human; both were killed by vampires, and he’s being raised by an aunt. He’s 13, attending 8th grade, has a crush on a particular girl, and gets regularly harassed by two bullies. His lunches are spiked with blood capsules, since that’s what provides him nourishment. He must keep secret the fact that he’s a vampire; only his family and a friend know.

Turns out a society of vampires is looking for him. They killed his parents (his father fell out of favor), and there’s something special about Vladimir which even he doesn’t realize (and we’re not informed about in this first book).

I liked this book better than the Cirque du Freak book, and I’ll definitely read more.

“13 Bullets” (2007), Book 1 of the Vampire Series by David Wellington. Wellington wrote a trilogy about zombies, and just started a series about werewolves. In between are four books about vampires.

“13 Bullets,” you discover quickly, is not juvenile fiction. The main characters are adults (a police detective and a US Marshall), the action can be gruesome, and a few expletives creep in. There is nothing romantic, or even human, about Wellington’s vampires. They don’t look human anymore, they are merciless killers, they are almost unstoppable in their speed and strength, and there is absolutely nothing redeeming about them. They must be killed.

The protagonist is Laura Caxton, a Pennsylvania State Trooper. It’s believed that vampires were wiped out 20 years ago when Jameson Arkeley, now a US Marshall, killed the last remaining ones. But one vampire remains, imprisoned for the past 20 years yet somehow able to create new vampires on the outside.

Caxton gets teamed with Arkeley to track down and kill the new vampires and their half-dead minions. There is a lot of mayhem, lots of bodies. Wellington takes some new approaches to the vampire legend. I liked the story, which moved right along, and will read more in the series.

Don Winslow is becoming one of my favorite authors. “The Winter of Frankie Machine” is the best book I’ve read in 2010. “The Life and Death of Bobby Z” was pretty good. And now I’ve finished “The Dawn Patrol.” All are Vintage/Black Lizard imprints.

“The Dawn Patrol” (1978) centers around Boone Daniels, a well-known surfer in San Diego who works, when he feels like is, as a private investigator. He’s a former cop with an aversion to authority.

An insurance company hires him to investigate a possible insurance scam. The book meanders around with a laid back, southern California vibe. There is no hurry to anything. A woman is murdered, a child prostitution ring is unearthed, various criminals set their sites on Boone, and there’s lots of drama involving Boone, his old flame Summer, and Petra, the beautiful insurance company rep who tags along as he does his investigative thing.

The title “dawn patrol” consists of five surfers–four men (including Boone) and one woman (Summer, the best surfer of all). A distant tsunami is sending some big waves to San Diego, and none of them want to miss out. Boone fears that his PI gig will get in the way.

“The Dawn Patrol” is not nearly as good as “Frankie Machine,” but it was enjoyable. Maybe a bit too slow-moving for my tastes, but I do admire Winslow’s word-smithing capabilities.

On vacation, I read three books. Not a very impressive output, by my standards, and certainly fewer than I expected to read. But three it was. And here are two of them.

“The Enemy” is Lee Child’s 2004 book about Jack Reacher. Although it’s the 8th book in the series, it’s actually a prequel to all the other books. The story takes us back to Reacher’s days as an MP in the military. A general dies under suspicious circumstances, then his wife is killed, then a Delta soldier is killed, then the Delta commander is killed. Reacher and a woman MP fight through all kinds of institutional obstacles to try to solve the murders and figure out what in the world was happening.

Frankly, this was my least favorite Reacher book. It was very much a police procedural. The plot moved along slowly, without the “thriller” feel of his other books. I struggled to get through it. And when I got to the end, some things didn’t really add up for me. I think Lee Child needs to leave really intricate plotting to people like John Grisham, and just let Jack Reacher cause mayhem.

“Cross Country” is the 14th Alex Cross novel by James Patterson. I’ve read all 13 earlier novels, and as far as I can remember, they were all winners. “Cross Country” may be the first Alex Cross novel I didn’t really care for.

Patterson excels at creating villains. Here, it’s a hulking Nigerian named The Tiger who leads a band of killer kids in home invasions, massacring entire families. It’s all tied to things happening back in Nigeria. One of the victims is an old flame of Alex Cross.

Cross ends up traveling to Nigeria to catch The Tiger, and things immediately begin going badly. He also ends up in Sierra Leone, where we learn all about the civil war of the 1990s (though Patterson makes it sound almost like the rebel war is still going on), and then to Darfur, where we learn about the plight of refugees there. Then it’s back to Nigeria, where we learn more about the sad state of affairs in that country. In the process, he gets beat up more than Rocky.

It all felt unnecessary, especially the jaunts to Sierra Leone and Darfur. Neither trip furthered the plot. Patterson just wanted to inform readers about the situation in these places, and decided to do it very awkwardly. Philip Kerr’s “Berlin Noir” novels, set in Nazi Germany, provided a fascinating historical backdrop without sidetracking from his plots. A Michener novel educates you about times and places, without coming across as trying to “teach.” Patterson just didn’t do a good job with taking his story to a different country. He acquired some humanitarian conscience and wanted to spread it, and did it poorly.

A character as strong as Alex Cross does cry out for a TV series. Morgan Freeman played Alex Cross in a couple movies, but he was a bad choice–too old. A young Denzel would have been great.