Poe for Your Problems: Uncommon Advice from History's Least Likely Self-Help Guru

I thought this was a phenomenal book and very uplifting. I can see myself reading it a few pages a day on bad days because it is almost magikal with how it brings up my emotions.What I like most about the book is that is contains a lot of funny illustrations and fill in the blank exercises to look at and ponder. Poe had a myriad of interests and was ahead of his time but lived in a time of above normal alcohol consumption, divorce, and poverty/income inequality due to the Panic of 1837. He is someone who probably would have benefited from having a Federal Reserve and supported people to bring that about. The book talks about how sometimes no matter how hard you try, you fail to live up to your potential due to external circumstances (which I agree with and that the law of attraction is delusional). Let's see.. the book intertwines a lot of interesting info about his life, the women who helped him survive, and all his male enemies and failed relationships including his father. The thing I don't like about the book is that the advice seems to be very different (incongruous) from a sort of Stoic mindset who maybe wouldn't try as hard as Poe did anyway given the bad circumstances he was dealt, and it seems to me at least that his Eureka poem was indeed extremely monumental; as a matter of fact, in ww1 and 2 it's this same "hunch" or imaginative ability that gave the allies the ability to decipher Enigma and win the war despite insane odds and the sheer luck of lazy German operators not following proper protocol. Likewise, modern day philosophers who also believe in his multiverse cosmology are putting forth similar philosophies. So the endorsements seemed a little incongruous. Rather than Stoic, it seemed to me to be more a Christian philosophy of God sort of through ironic means having the weak and feeble defeat gargantuan enemies like David and Goliath, and Frodo taking down Sauron, Christ feebly conquering death and sin by dying on a Cross, and people ironically not seeing what monumental thing has happened, and carrying on as usual. So Poe was ahead of his time in all sorts of fields as sciences as mentioned above and in my mind on the level of Einstein. The only other qualm I had was the paper quality was poor for erasable pen and also that I don't take as a fact that he was racist, that's very debatable and instead he liked to contrast black and white as if he was also a manga artist 150 years before his time. Hawthorne also used the black/white contrast too in his stories such as the Scarlett Letter (the Sable colour).

If you’re a fan of Edgar Allan Poe’s work and/or self help literature makes you roll your eyes and say “nevermore,” you’ll love this book.The author recasts Poe’s personal story as that of a modern era motivational hero. The result is a satirical “Poe-gram” for success or anti-success (depending on how you look at it) that had me chuckling all the way through. But on a more serious note, you’ll likely see some of your own foibles in Poe’s tragic life and career. You might even see some of those faults in a new light after reading it.While I truly enjoyed the book, it is replete with pop culture references that will no doubt be confusing for readers several years into the future. That said, I’d encourage you to enjoy it now.

I truly enjoyed this book. Smart, clever, insightful, and funny — well researched and honest. The author has inspired me to reread those works of Poe I read years ago and to reach further into Poe’s works that I have not yet read, all with a new understanding of his life. The book is chock full of great advice drawn from the adventures, failures, and challenges experienced by Poe over his 40 years, and left me with one more tool to use when faced with my own life problems — the question, “what would Poe do?”

I only vaguely remember Poe from my half-hearted high school reading of The Telltale Heart, and yet I found this book intriguing. It reignited an interest in Poe, and I got a lot out of it even without rereading any. I can't remember the last self-help book I actually finished, and yet I raced through this in just 3 or 4 days. It turns out that satire of self help can really make you think about what you want most and how to achieve it. There's a great message of perseverance and how to handle the inevitable tragedy of life. It's well written, smart, and more than a little funny. It could be a whole new genre of anti-self help as self-help.

This book is an interesting take, a witty reprise of a classic author.

The best self help book I’ve ever read 😂👏🏼 Love the satire, realistic point of view straight from the POEt himself