Poe for Your Problems

“Books about people’s successes are common. Books where you can learn from someone’s painful demons and failures are rarer—but far more meaningful. Cat's writing on Poe is insightful, funny and important.”

“Fresh, page-turning, deeply informed and often funny, Catherine Baab-Muguira’s Poe for Your Problems brings us a sorely overdue Poe-meets-modernity perspective that won’t simply make its readers happier but smarter and even saner, too.”

“I loved this! A book Poe himself might’ve written: fun, dangerous, a little dark, semi-autobiographical, ambitious but not pompous, and funny and outrageous!”

“This is more like an anti-self-help book, a guide to accepting yourself for the substance-abusing, sexually suspect fuckup you already are; a how-to for cultivating grudges, nurturing petty jealousies and vendettas, scheming the destruction of your enemies and indulging delusions of grandeur. I endorse this.”

“Beautifully written, funny, clever, and wise . . . Baab-Muguira not only provides us with invaluable takeaways from Poe’s antisocial behavior, but also implores us to embrace our own madness, or as she calls it, our "own weird-ass, occasionally combative truth.'"

"Imagine The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People—set in a Stephen King novel. This is my favorite self-help book written with a horror backdrop."

“On the surface, it is something of a self-help satire, mining Poe’s difficult life to make readers feel better about theirs. Scratch that surface, though, and you find a deeper, more profound purpose . . . a book that is witty yet weighty, designed to provide smiles but also a lift.”

"It turns out that the author of The Cask of Amontillado is the perfect therapist for folks who’ve been walled up indoors for 18 months."

“Hilarious and honestly helpful. If you want to read this book purely as a parody of typical self-help fare, you can totally do that and have a great time. But you might notice as you read that you’re actually ingesting some good advice from an unlikely source.”

"There is something irresistible about the notion that the Master of the Macabre was the 19th century’s answer to Ann Landers—especially when the chapters have such mock-earnest titles as "Embracing Your Inner Neurotic," "Pathological Mate Selection," and "How to Conduct Yourself in a Feud." Bet you just laughed."

"Catherine Baab-Muguira is a very, very funny writer, and her relating of Poe’s unconventional path to posthumous fame is an entertaining read. But in between the snark and sarcasm in the pages of her book are some razor-sharp observations on human nature and highly astute takes on the illusory concept of ‘success.’ I highly recommend this book for all you soul-weary travelers who find humor in the darkness of this looney world we live in. Nevermore, motherf*ckers.”