A Reader`s Guide to Wallace Stevens

I feel I must write a positive review to counter-balance the one star review of the Kindle version! The printed copy is an attractive book with an excellent short biography of Wallace Stevens at the beginning. The notes to the poems tend to be restricted to matters of 'factual' reference rather than extended interpretation: for instance, places and names are explained and allusions the reader might miss are addressed. This being said, I have often found whole new layers of meaning opening up through reading these notes. To give one example, before this book I never appreciated the trope of tea drinking as a metaphor for reading poetry (leaves being turned, rituals observed, flavours slowly released etc)- an insight which unlocks many of Stevens' poems. So I highly recommend this Guide - the printed version - to all who have the patience and desire to engage with Steven's challenging but exquisitely beautiful poetry.

I'd give the printed version of this excellent book 5 stars, but the Kindle version is only worth 1 star for the following reasons.1. There are many instances where the space is missing between words.2. On the Kindle Paperwhite you can't change the font (you can on the iPad Kindle app).3. The index is a scanned image, not text with links, and is unreadable, which is a severe limitation because one has to make extensive use of it.I notified the publisher, who seemed less than interested.