It’s Wednesday, which means that it’s time for another roundup of things we think you might want to read from book blogs around the Internet. Since last time, the Internet has been abuzz with the idiosyncrasies and failings of canonical authors. Below the fold, lots of that, a ranking of poets by their beard weight, a great interview with Chloe Aridjis, and a surprising reaction to Britain’s new poet laureate.

Jacket Copy shares a photo of a Charles Dickens’ letter opener, complete with a handle made from the paw of his dead cat.

<HTMLGiant> finds a memoir full of hate for Sylvia Plath written by Dido Merwin. Featured in the appendix of a new biography on the poet by Anne Stevenson, Merwin manages to make Plath sound like a precursor to Kanye West: “Otherness made her uneasy. What she needed was  the reassurance of docile doppelgangers and supportive soul mates and yes-persons.”