Dante and Poe

I can say quite confidently that the afternoon, and soon to be "evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherised upon a table." Outside the omnipresent clouds are growling, almost barking with the peal of far-away thunder and my dog, Lady, has been quivering at my feet all morning. What is the thunder saying to her?

My new book of choice, The Dante Club, likewise, presents some ominous words from its fake fear-mongering preface:

I have waived any recompensation, for this was no longer a preface I set out to write but a warning. Kenneth Stanton's death throws wide open the closed portal of Dante's arrival to our world, of the secrets still lying dormant in our own age. Of these I only wish to caution you, reader. Please, if you continue, remember first that words can bleed.

Evidently, Matthew Pearl just came out with his second book, another American literary thriller, called The Poe Shadow.