Tag Archives: reading

The End of the world is not the Ragnarök

Posted on September 20, 2024 by Mark Hayes

My axe is cold, frost crisscross’s the handle and the fingers that hold it, but the blade is sharp still and blood still flows in he that would wield it.
The Ragnarök is over, we are what remain Continue reading →

Posted in amreading, books, fiction, Harvey Duckman, indie, indie writers, pagan, reads, supernatural, writes, writing | Tagged amreading, amwriting, books, fiction, Harvey Duckman, Post Apocalypse School of Teesside, reading, reads, writer, writing | Leave a comment

Dear Edgar #19 The Devil in the Belfry

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Mark Hayes

Order is a wonderful thing, there is a genuine joy to waking up on a morning and knowing there will be breakfast in the cupboard, because there is always breakfast in the cupboard. There is a safety and some would … Continue reading →

Posted in books, Dear Edgar, Goth, horror, reads, retro book reviews | Tagged amreadinghorror, Dear Edgar, Edgar Alan Poe, reading | Leave a comment

Here Today, Scone Tomorrow

Posted on July 29, 2024 by Mark Hayes

Folk law is full of places that don’t entirely exist. Places that slide off the map, and give cartographers a headache. Continue reading →

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Authors of Folly and Madness

Posted on July 8, 2024 by Mark Hayes

In a dimly lit basement. Beneath the grim streets of a post industrial city whence dark satanic mills long since ceased to pushing dense black smoke in to the air. On a wooden operating table, complete with ancient leather straps … Continue reading →

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Dear Edgar #11 The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall

Posted on July 24, 2023 by Mark Hayes

Edgar Allen Poe remains one to the most influential writers of the western cannon. His Horror stories inspired many writers, not least those of HP Lovecraft’s generation a hundred years later and by extension Steven King generation were inspired by both Poe and the previous generations he had inspired. Without Poe there may never have been a Cthulhu or a Pennywise the clown. Continue reading →

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Dear Edgar #9 Morella

Posted on July 6, 2023 by Mark Hayes

Our own Dear Edgar is, as you are probably aware, much beloved by those who favour clothing themselves in black, wearing dark eye-shadow and catching moon moths while they dance to ‘This Corrosion’. Some might say this is because he and his story’s have a reputation for more than a fleeting obsession with tragedy, love and death. That and his poetry, obsessed with tragedy, love and death…

This is of course an unfair summing up of Poe’s body of work, in some stories no one comes to a tragic appalling end… Continue reading →

Posted in amreading, Dear Edgar, Goth, horror, humour, Poe, reads | Tagged amreading, books, Dear Edgar, Edgar Alan Poe, horror, Poe, reading, reads, writing | 4 Comments

Dear Edgar #6 MS Found in a Bottle

Posted on May 10, 2023 by Mark Hayes

Poe scholars are apt to say it was this story that truly launched Poe’s career. Certainly its is the first tale to read the way you expect Poe to read, with an ominous intensity wrapped in poetic language, creeping with ever more intensity towards a dark grim conclusion. In this tale then, you can see all that is to come late in Poe’s career. Continue reading →

Posted in amreading, book reviews, books, cthulhu, Dear Edgar, Goth, horror, Lovecraft, Poe, quotes, reads, retro book reviews, supernatural, Uncategorized | Tagged amreading, classic reads, Dear Edgar, Edgar Alan Poe, horror, Lovecraft, Poe, reading, reads | Leave a comment

Dear Edgar #1: Metzengerstein

Posted on February 28, 2023 by Mark Hayes

In 1832 a now former Sargent Major in the United States Army had almost reached the age he’d claimed to be on his enlistment forms four year earlier. Why he lied about his age when joining the army is a bit of a mystery as he was 18 at the time but while he was at it he also lied about his name, the recruitment papers stating it as being Edgar A Perry Continue reading →

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Words in Darkness

Posted on January 27, 2023 by Mark Hayes

I am fond of the dark, of laying on my bed, naked to the world, staring into the void. I could be staring up at anything. Staring up at endless worlds of possibility. The dance of the infinite. The realm … Continue reading →