Sorry! I've been away in Big London doing work stuff ... Read Ackroyd's Poe: A Life Cut Short which was, you know, fine... A compelling enough read, for sure, but I got little sense of Poe as writer -- and I didn't buy Ackroyd's contention that he wasn't an alcoholic either. Good introductory overview to the man, however.
Reading Sherman Young's The Book Is Dead (Long Live the Book) at the moment -- more about this anon. Also reading On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy (out of print, I'm afraid, but fairly easy to get hold of) by John Jones for a paper I'm writing on poetics. Jones is very good at getting us to see beyond Shakespearian stereotypes and to help us to attend to the "otherness" of Greek drama.
Readers Comments
May I also point out that readers might also be interested to know about Scott Peeples' highly praised The Afterlife of Edgar Allan Poe (Camden House), which looks at Poe's death and how his reputation has fared since. The book was listed as one of Matthew Pearl's top ten books on Poe in the Guardian and won the Poe Studies Association's award in 2004. It's now available in paperback.
Hi Michael,
Good call. ISBN of Peeples' The Afterlife of Poe is 1571133577 if anyone is looking for it.
And Matthew Pearl's Poe list is here: http://books.guardian.co.uk/top10s/top10/0,,1781430,00.html