Appointment with Death by Agatha Christie – Book Review
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Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich – Book Review
I put off reading this book forever, mostly because I was intimidated by its sheer doorstop size. In the end, this requiem for the Soviet era proved to be both an easy and hard read. While perhaps not the pick if you’re looking to lift your spirits in the time of a global pandemic, it’s a book that fully deserves the term “masterpiece”.
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie – Book Review
This is only the second Christie novel in my re-readathon that I genuinely don’t remember ever reading before. I had the right instinct about who dunnit all along, but this Poirot mystery still boasts plenty of surprises and twists.
The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie – Book Review
I couldn’t recall much about this stand-alone murder mystery other than a few stray details, but that’s an unfair reflection on the novel. While it may not be one of Christie’s true classics, it definitely deserved to be remembered better.
Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie – Book Review
Evil Under the Sun marks an important milestone in my re-readathon – if Wikipedia is to be believed, I’m now precisely halfway through Christie’s back catalogue of detective novels with the book review no. 33! Since I officially committed to this challenge back in August 2018, I should probably complete it by August 2022. Let’s hope that the world is in a decent shape by then, or at least limping back to normality.
Passenger to Frankfurt by Agatha Christie – Book Review
I felt that it was time to strategically sprinkle in another of Christie’s big-time stinkers into my re-readathon. Like The Big Four, Passenger to Frankfurt is another of Dame Agatha’s failed attempts at a spy novel about a world-wide conspiracy out to destroy the existing social order. While the former is just plain terrible, the latter also has the dubious distinction of being probably the weirdest book Christie ever penned, and not in a good way. It was first published in 1970 to mark her 80th birthday, and, at the most charitable, it can be seen as a window into Christie’s view of the world she found herself in the twilight of her years.
The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie – Book Review
First published in 1923, The Murder on the Links is Agatha Christie’s third novel and the second to feature her famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. I remember it mostly as “the one where Hastings meets his future wife”.
The World’s Religions by Huston Smith – Book Review
I initially read this engaging and erudite book about the world’s predominant faiths many years ago, but I felt like a refresher, and, just like the first time around, I found myself humbled by the realisation of how much I didn’t know. In truth, it would probably take me a few more readings to fully absorb the dense layers of information presented here, but you’re still left with a decent understanding of the world’s main religions even if you can’t hold on to all the points.
Morvern Callar by Alan Warner – Book Review
Some books seem to possess a long-lasting hold over your imagination, and I just keep coming back to this deeply strange, macabre and lyrical novel. This must be the fourth or fifth time I re-visited it over the years, and somehow it managed to leave me with a different impression every time.
The Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie – Book Review
I made a mistake in my review of The Murder at the Vicarage: while it was Miss Marple’s full-length novel debut, it wasn’t her first appearance, rather it was in a 1927 short story called The Tuesday Night Club. Later, it became the first chapter in this entertaining collection of thirteen short stories, which together form a sort of episodic novel. Midway through the book, I realised that I have actually read it before, but the details of each story completely evaporated from my memory so it was like reading them anew.
