Renfrew read and liked Kasia's review of Salem's Lot:

"I find Stephen King repetitive, his characters not all that likable, his endings BAD. But I like silly potboilers featuring vampires. Don't judge me!! I'm an vampire fanatic, and Salem's Lot is one of the undead classics, I was bound to read it. Ok, ...more I find Stephen King repetitive, his characters not all that likable, his endings BAD. But I like silly potboilers featuring vampires. Don't judge me!! I'm an vampire fanatic, and Salem's Lot is one of the undead classics, I was bound to read it. Ok, I was bound to listen to the audiobook, if I were to be precise. Hiking on a trail in Carpathians (same Carpathians that count Dracula had his monstrous castle in), getting soaked to the bone* (oh how I hate the treacherous mountain weather!), with my ankles notoriously sinking in deep mud (you'd be surprised how quickly that ground on that trail can turn into something with the consistence of butter) with 3 hours of marching left, and scared I would soon go crazy** with cold and exhaustion, as a means of distraction from it all, I pulled out my mp3 player and set it to Salem's Lot.

The story did its job splendidly. I was scared shitless and soon nearly forgot about my drenched socks, clingy, heavy with water jeans and the tortured groans of my taciturn travelling companion. I adore the guy but he has no stamina, easily falls into foul moods and makes a wretched conversationalist, so in this case snubbing him out with an audiobook made perfect sense.

The fact that as all King's stories, and this one too, are repetitive in their nature, worked in my favor, that day. Brown puddles of water and wet twines leaping at my face would require my full attention now and again. The reader would continue on with the story while I dealt with the crisis at hand, and once the unpleasantries were over, jump back into the narrative created no problems. The fact that the mp3 player insisted on playing chapters in random order (must have been all the moisture), seemed to be of little consequence as well. It required some awareness and mental straining as the end of one chapter was reached, and an arbitrary other was selected. But in all honesty, not all that much awareness and not that much straining was necessary. Conclusion: sometimes repetition is not that bad.

Funny how despite the wretched weather, or maybe because of it, and because of randomization of Salem's Lot's chapters that hike turned out to be a memorable experience. The drenched socks and wet itchy hair, were making me groan with displeasure. While the beautiful views around me and the evil tirades of bloodthirsty vampires, were wrinkling my brain in a good way. Such a mind-body dissonance is going to be hard to repeat. Shame, because it sure was fun!

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*I did not pack my rainproof coat that morning, BIG mistake.

**There's no documented history of mental disorders in my family, but you never know, especially when you're dealing the constant cold showers intercepted confusingly with brief moments of sunshine.(less) "