Sunday 16:00-16:30, repeated Thursday 16:00-16:30, except first Sunday in the month when it is replaced by Book Club.
Open Book spotlights new fiction and non-fiction, picks out the best of the paperbacks, talks to authors and publishers, and unearths lost masterpieces.
This week
Sunday 13 January 2008
The life and works of Edgar Allen Poe are discussed on Open Book this week.
Edgar Allan Poe is credited with inventing science fiction, with writing the first detective story, and virtually inventing the genre of horror. In stories such as The Pit and the Pendulum, or The Fall of the House of Usher, he created enduring masterpieces of literary terror. Yet he spent most of his life in poverty and died in mysterious circumstances at the age of forty.
Kathryn is joined by four Poe fans to discuss his work. Peter Ackroyd, the acclaimed novelist and author of non-fiction works about subjects including T.S. Eliot and London, has written a new biography of Poe; he joins Kathryn to discuss how Poe's strange obsessions and troubled relationships with women affected his life, and outline the mystery of his death.
Kathryn is also joined by the novelist Louise Welsh, the critic and writer Kim Newman, and the American academic Diane Roberts to look at the achievements and lasting influence of this seminal figure - with readings by Kerry Shale and a selection of Poe-inspired music.
Edgar Allen Poe’s work is widely available in a variety of paperback editions
Poe: A Life Cut Short: Peter Ackroyd
Publisher: Chatto and Windus
The Secret Files of the Diogenes Club: Kim Newman
Publisher: Monkeybrain
The Man from the Diogenes Club: Kim Newman
Publisher: Monkeybrain
Dead Travel Fast: Kim Newman
Publisher: Dinoship
The Bullet Trick: Louise Welsh
Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd
The Cutting Room: Louise Welsh
Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd
Tamburlaine Must Die: Louise Welsh
Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd
