Book #55: Tales of Mystery and Imagnation by Edgar Allen Poe
I read Edgar Allen Poe's book of short stories and novellas previously, and decided to try this again. Unfortunately, both times I found a lot of it quite hard because of the language Poe uses, but some stories were more enjoyable than others. I remember the first stories almost putting me off altogether, although the format of the second story, "The Balloon Hoax" felt way ahead of its time because of the unconventional format of being presented like a magazine article.
Most of the collection of horror, fantasy and thriller stories were enjoyable enough, with some of the ones I enjoyed more including "The Fall of the House of Usher", "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "William Wilson", and the fact that I used a website online to explain more about what was going on in the stories did help a little.
This book is worth trying, but you have to read everything carefully, as it isn't something than can be read quickly, mostly because it is often very long-winded, and some of the stories seem to end very abruptly. Poe is definitely most entertaining when he is being macabre.
Next book: Fobbit by David Abrams