afterlife 9, by s.c. virtes / &c.
afterlife 9 is another chapbook of virtes' poetry. These poems are a lot more personal than those from the other secret house -- a fact the afterword confirms. But because they are more personal and somewhat more experimental, I found them much harder to appreciate. At the same time, they are more poignant and meaningful.
I've also been reading a free Edgar Allan Poe download on my Kindle for the past bajillion years. Someone trolled Project Gutenberg (and the like) for free e-texts of Poe's stuff. Which is about what you expect for free. My favorite thing about the book is that some genius editor somewhere somewhen did in fact notice how to spell Poe's middle name correctly. However, in fixing this, he or she went a little overboard, so that the word 'fallen' appears as 'fAllan' about three hundred times.
My second favorite thing is that it has also trolled out everything, including short story anthologies that have one Poe story and another dozen by other writers. Since all the anthologies are in the public domain, it means I've been reading a lot of old short stories. Some are horror collections, some are detective collections, one is a collection of 'puzzle' stories. The text is so long that I've forgotten a billion good short stories already, but I'll mention a couple recent ones.
Not exactly a good story, but the shocking and incredible solution to the mystery, and resolution of the story, is an interesting historical artifact in Fitz James O'Brien's "My Wife's Tempter".
And Mark Twain sure knew how to tear at your heartstrings when he had a mind to, as he did when writing "A Dog's Tale", which was later reissued as a pamphlet by the [Spoiler Alert].
I've also been reading a free Edgar Allan Poe download on my Kindle for the past bajillion years. Someone trolled Project Gutenberg (and the like) for free e-texts of Poe's stuff. Which is about what you expect for free. My favorite thing about the book is that some genius editor somewhere somewhen did in fact notice how to spell Poe's middle name correctly. However, in fixing this, he or she went a little overboard, so that the word 'fallen' appears as 'fAllan' about three hundred times.
My second favorite thing is that it has also trolled out everything, including short story anthologies that have one Poe story and another dozen by other writers. Since all the anthologies are in the public domain, it means I've been reading a lot of old short stories. Some are horror collections, some are detective collections, one is a collection of 'puzzle' stories. The text is so long that I've forgotten a billion good short stories already, but I'll mention a couple recent ones.
Not exactly a good story, but the shocking and incredible solution to the mystery, and resolution of the story, is an interesting historical artifact in Fitz James O'Brien's "My Wife's Tempter".
And Mark Twain sure knew how to tear at your heartstrings when he had a mind to, as he did when writing "A Dog's Tale", which was later reissued as a pamphlet by the [Spoiler Alert].