I saw this on Danan’s status message. Desperate for money, he wrote to his publishers in 1842 to ask them to buy his article and apologized for drinking too much.

His birthday is on the anniversary of my mom’s death: January 19. Poe was an amazing writer of the macabre and as a big fan of dark and psychological fiction, I have a great deal of admiration for him.

The exhibit in celebration of his 200th birthday (of which the above letter is but one piece) is called “From Out That Shadow: the Life and Legacy of Edgar Allan Poe” and is at the Univ. of Virginia until August 1st, then at the U of Texas from September 8 – January 4, 2010. I think it’ll be worth a trip to see it.

I love this BBC article about trashy books. It’s interesting to note that the article claims that people often pretend to have read literary books in order to be more sexually attractive, not to seem more intelligent which implies that intelligence is sexually attractive. Which of course, all of us geeks know.

I am an admitted book snob, but I’m not ashamed to be caught reading erotica in public (I’m a big fan of the Best American Erotica series which has been discontinued as of last year — but it’s actually not trashy as in not worth the paper it’s written on — most of it is actually quite well written). Nor am I too proud to pick some trash fiction at the airport. I like Neal Stephenson, have read several Stephen Kings, and Dan Brown can turn an interesting tale. Sometimes I purposely read something that’s immensely popular but lacking in eloquence just so I can be like the cool kids and stay up on reading trends. And I love graphic novels.

I didn’t recognize any of the books mentioned in the article, but now I’ve got a reading list of trash for my next trip! Oooh! I can read them on my Kindle!