November 2022 Reading Thread

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Letters by JRR Tolkien (edited by Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien). A mostly fascinating reread that will probably take me weeks to finish. How can anyone write that much correspondence whilst holding down a professorship and writing LOTR? (Ah, no internet.)
 
HoopyFrood said:
Listening to my first ever audiobook. Haven't got the wherewithal for reading fiction these days, but I found an Agatha Christie on Spotify Crooked House. It's my first Christie, have wanted to read her for a while though. Remarkable. Such skill at making me start to suspect someone, then someone else says or does something and you're off onto another line of thought. Could be any of them. Or none. Right now I even suspect the kids.
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Well for anyone who's read the book this

would've been some nice dramatic irony for you seeing as it was one of the kids!

But not who I was expecting. Even up to the last moment my suspicions were still all over, but that's the point. I don't think I've ever gasped out loud so much at something. A dark ending but I very much enjoyed my first Agatha.

Which is why I'm now listening to Murder is Easy. Surprised gasping has already commenced.
 
I think it's one of Christie's best ones. I always liked her books most when they broke the usual conventions of the country-house murder story. For someone who's known as cozy, she can be surprisingly sinister.
 
Toby Frost said:
I think it's one of Christie's best ones. I always liked her books most when they broke the usual conventions of the country-house murder story. For someone who's known as cozy, she can be surprisingly sinister.
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Her play the mousetrap celebrated it's 70th anniversary back in October. It has run continuously since 1952 with the only break being during, you guessed it, covid.
 
Toby Frost said:
I think it's one of Christie's best ones. I always liked her books most when they broke the usual conventions of the country-house murder story. For someone who's known as cozy, she can be surprisingly sinister.
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See also, The Last Seance: Tales of the Supernatural by Christie.

I understand why critics disliked her characterization -- she worked mainly in stereotypes -- but how they could miss the comic angles she found in so many of her stories and novels still confounds me. Many of her books, especially early on, have a jaunty energy that makes them compulsive reading. I think I've mentioned this before, but at times her approach to murder mysteries reminds me of M. R. James' approach to ghost stories in that behind the horrific events, there seems to be some glee in the telling.
 
En Notre âme et concience by Marie Louise Fischer* - which is the most godawful, melodramatic soap I have read for a long time. A young woman serving on a murder trial jury discovers (before anyone else) that her new husband was the last person to see the victim alive!

[Three dramatic chords here please.]

Originally written in German and translated into French, it's set in a Munich that is only about two miles wide and has a population of about 45 people. Everywhere anyone goes they bump into someone important to the plot who they recognise (doing something to advance the story) without being recognised themselves. And everyone is incredibly leaky. There isn't a single female character who hasn't burst into tears, turned their face away to hide their tears, felt their eyes brimming with tears, etc., etc. Not that the men are any better; just about every male character has burst out in a cold sweat, or had to mop the sweat from their brows, or felt a nervous sweat soaking their forehead.

And boy do they have some great doctors in Germany! Our heroine is visiting her mother at one point, she faints (not for the first time) and wakes up to find a man she has never seen before with stethoscope round his neck telling her (she hadn't even suspected herself) that she is pregnant. With one look at her fainted form he is able to tell!

It's awful! I love it.



* Who, according to Wikipedia, was the author of 100+ novels, 75+ books for kids and long a time youth magazine agony aunt.
 
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I've just finished: Sorcery & Cecelia: or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot (Cecelia and Kate, #1) by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
""Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country". The epistalory novel is set in a Regency England where magic works. It was based on a letter game between the two authors and the fun they had writing it is apparent. Light entertainment.
 
I faintly remember watching a dystopian Britain TV series in the late 1970s, it was titled 1990 and starred Edward Woodward.

I'm now reading the book of that series, written by Wilfred Greatorex....good so far
 
Danny McG said:
I faintly remember watching a dystopian Britain TV series in the late 1970s, it was titled 1990 and starred Edward Woodward.

I'm now reading the book of that series, written by Wilfred Greatorex....good so far
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I've already read it at some point, and not too long ago!
So I'm culling my TBR file and dumping loads of ones I know I'll never read
 
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