My friend Mike was a vampire nut and wanted to become a vampire and start a "vampires anonymous" society. I read it based on his strong recommendation and I loved it.
Have you read the 1871 novella that inspired Dracula? By Sheridan Le Fanu, it tells the story of a female vampire named Carmilla that's been made into several films as well (the great 1960s horror film Black Sunday was loosely based on it). From the wikipedia entry of this book:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmilla
"...Although Carmilla is a lesser known and far shorter Gothic vampire story than the generally-considered master work of that genre, Dracula, the latter is heavily influenced by Le Fanu's short story.
In the earliest manuscript of Dracula, dated 8 March 1890, the castle is set in Styria, although the setting was changed to Transylvania six days later. Stoker's posthumously published short story "Dracula's Guest", known as the deleted first chapter to Dracula, shows a more obvious and intact debt to "Carmilla": Both stories are told in the first person. Dracula expands on the idea of a first person account by creating a series of journal entries and logs of different persons and creating a plausible background story for them having been compiled. Stoker also indulges the air of mystery further than Le Fanu by allowing the characters to solve the enigma of the vampire along with the reader.
The descriptions of Carmilla and the character of Lucy in Dracula are similar, and have become archetypes for the appearance of the waif-like victims and seducers in vampire stories as being tall, slender, languid, and with large eyes, full lips and soft voices. Both women also sleepwalk.
Stoker's Dr. Abraham Van Helsing is a direct parallel to Le Fanu's vampire expert Baron Vordenburg: both characters used to investigate and catalyse actions in opposition to the vampire, and symbolically represent knowledge of the unknown and stability of mind in the onslaught of chaos and death.[9] ..."
Another cool classic vampire story is Viy by Russian writer Nikolai Gogol written in 1835. You can also see a strong influence of this story on the above-mentioned 60s horror classic Black Sunday by Italian director Mario Bava. I read Viy as a kid (again based on my vampire nut friend's recommendation) and it scared the crap out of me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viy_%28story%29
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