Book List 2015

What I read in 2015:

1. Black-Winged Angels, Angela Slatter
2. The Female Factory, Lisa L Hannett, Angela Slatter
3. Secret Lives, Rosaleen Love
4. THe Ringmaster's Daughter, Jostein Gaardner (charming but not challenging)
5. Novascapes Volume 1, Cassandra E. Page
6. The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion (was skeptical at first, but it is a charming book)
7. The Courier’s New Bicycle, Kim Westwood (not as apocalyptic as expected, but very good all the same)
8. Drowned Vanilla, Livia Day (omg loved this!! Tasmania, ice cream and Tabitha making some very silly decisions...)
9. The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern (loved the concept, but there were a few holes in the plot)
10. Cranky Ladies of history, Tehani Wessely and Tansy Rayner Roberts (editors) (great selection of historical figures, known and lesser known)
11. 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (loved this! great scope but still human)
12. The Ill-Made Mute, Cecilia Dart-Thornton (sorry - yawn fest)
13. Cherry Crow Children, Deborah Kalin (so dark, so fabulous)
14. Last Chance to See, Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine (excellent historical document! plus animals)
15. Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn (well that was a bit of a pageturner!)
16. The Host, Stephanie Meyer (marginally less ridiculous than Twilight)
17. The Shambling Guide to New York City, Mur Lafferty (not Buffy, not even close)
18. The Locus Awards, Ed. Jonathan Strahan and Charles N. Brown (anthology of excellent stories)
19. The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction V. 2, Ed. George Mann (suffered in comparison ot the Locus anthol)
20. Web, John Wyndham (interesting from a historical perspective, but not groundbreaking in today's context)
21. Razorhurst, Justine Larbelestier (excellent book, great Australian history + ghosts!)
22. Trouble Twisters, Sean Williams and Garth Nix (this is a kids book and I should not be reading this)
23. The Blackmail Blend, Livia Day (typically charming Tabitha)
24. The Chemistry of Tears, Peter Carey (over my head)
25. Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel (wonderfully human portrayal of Cromwell)
26. Promises in Death, JD Robb (not my thing)
27. Five Quarters of the Orange, Joanne Harris (engrossing)
28. Summerland, Michael Chabon (pleasant but was it successful?)
29. Bad Feminist, Roxanne Gay (though provoking pleasure)
30. Foxglove Summer, Ben Aaronovitch (good return to form)
31. The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu (intriguing)
32. Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, James Tiptree/Alice B Sheldon/Racoona Sheldon (amazing stories from an amazing person)
33. The Double Life of Alice B Sheldon, Julie Phillips (amazing biography of an amazing person)
34. Letters to Tiptree, Alexandra Pierce and Alisa Krasnostein (amazing letters to an amazing person)
35. Wool, Hugh Howey (story overcomes sometimes poor writing)
36. Still Alice, Lisa Genova (look, sorry, underwhelmed)
37. Redemption Ark, Alastair Reynolds (good, but long)
38. A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan (unexpected, delightful)

Agathon #14: The Sittaford Mystery (1931)

Tansy and I started out with a challenge to read every book written by Agatha Christie, in order of publication – we’re blogging as we go along. We spoil all the things!

Yes, it’s been a while, but we’re still going! The Sittaford Mystery is also sometimes called Murder at Hazelmoor.

KATHRYN: First I need to say that I didn’t actually note the giant spoiler on the front cover, until I was photographing it for the blog...



This feels like a fairly ‘typical’ Christie murder mystery, although it has the distinction of including neither Miss Marple nor Poirot. Instead the detective in charge of the case is an Inspector Narracott, who is described as competent and intelligent, but doesn’t have much in the way of defining features otherwise. Indeed for the first ten chapters of the book I was wondering if Christie had written a mystery in which the detective had no personality at all. Come chapter eleven, however, it becomes apparent that Inspector Narracott is not the star of the book at all. Enter Emily Trefusis, determined to clear her fiance, Jim Pearson, who has been wrongly accused of the murder.

Normally I would be thrilled with a plucky young lady intent on solving a mystery (think Tuppence or Bundle) but I did not warm to Emily. Yes she is a capable young lady, but one of her primary methods is to fool men into thinking that she is less capable than she is, so they help her. Maybe if I was reading this in 1931, this would appeal, but here in 2013 the idea makes me weary. Can’t she just be capable and awesome without hiding it? Emily also seems to be very brittle, which I guess might be the case if your fiance has been accused of murder. She doesn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor and it is really not clear why she wants to marry Jim Pearson in the first place, as he seems to be completely incompetent and not even in an adorable way. (It is explained away by Emily declaring she needs someone to giude and look after. Again, this doesn’t appeal to me as a 21st century woman. Too much work!!)

I’m not sure any of the characters in this book rang true, nor were any that likeable. Instead we get a series of cardboard cutouts - old retired army men, grumpy invalids, flighty young women, and anonymous policemen. And while there are clues scattered through the book, and tied up neatly in the end, it felt a bit like an anticlimax. There didn’t seem to be much at stake, and I didn’t really care who had done it.

Even the ‘red herring’ sub plot, which involves an escapee from nearby prison on Dartmoor, is fairly abruptly resolved - to the extent that once the escapee is (spoiler alert) recaptured, his daughter’s response can be pretty much boiled down to ‘Oh well, he’s got pneumonia now. It’s probably just as well if he dies...’

I noted in ‘A Murder at the Vicarage’ that Christie used a first person narrator to good effect to mask the identity of the murderer until Miss Marple chose to reveal him. So just for the record, ‘Sittaford’ used 3rd person/omniscient narration, and the reader follows more than one character. Once Emily works out who did it, we get a few vague descriptions of what she has found, including a declaration of ‘I know who did it now, but not why’, and then that scene fades to black until the final reveal. This kind of felt like cheating…

TANSY: My apologies for the long delay on this one, I read it back when I had pneumonia last year, really enjoyed it and then never got around to writing it up!

I liked Emily a bit more than you did, K. I found her quite likeable in that Bundle-Tuppence sort of way. I also very much enjoyed the way that her detective work revolved around the exchange of confidences - she feels a lot like a junior Miss Marple. I also liked the journalist she dragged around with her, Charles, and enjoyed their banter.

It was a bit odd that the murder mystery seemed to be less central than the ongoing theme that everyone could see there was something romantic going on between Emily and Charles, and that despite working to save Jim from prison, she was *obviously* going to ditch him for our hapless young reporter. The idea of course is that Emily is herself in denial about this - and the rather odd sort of punchline is in fact that she was right all along about her feelings for Jim and not actually fancying Charles, thank you very much, and she planned to marry the man she was actually engaged with.
While I agree with you that Jim was totally uninteresting, I did find it amusing that Christie was playing with (and debunking) the trope and that Emily did not in fact change her mind purely because Charles was in love with her. Almost like she (Christie) thinks that unrequited love isn’t remotely romantic and doesn’t deserve to be rewarded…

(I have an unfortunate glitch in my programming that responds far too sympathetically to unrequited love stories, and have been trying to debug myself for years to no avail, so I must admit at this point that I was shipping Emily and Charles like mad, damn it).

I think this book might be the point where Christie has realised she’s a bit too sharp and cynical for the genre she’s writing in - it’s set up almost as a parody of her own previous works, with all the details about the murder and the trick to it and so on. But maybe that’s just because she is using so many elements that are used in more iconic books or indeed dozens and dozens of her imitators? This is the first Christie set in a snowbound manor, yes?

It was all terribly clever with the trick to it, but there was something that felt a bit off about it - like a short story worth of plot held together with banter and flirting. Still, I did find it very readable even with a lung that didn’t work, so there’s that.

Coming up:
1932: Peril at End House, Hercule Poirot, Arthur Hastings, Chief Inspector Japp
1932: The Thirteen Problems, Miss Marple Shorts
1933: Lord Edgware Dies (also Thirteen at Dinner ), Hercule Poirot, Arthur Hastings, Chief Inspector Japp

What Baby Read (2014)

1. Hide and Seek, Clara Vulliamy (library, good flaps to open, story is brief though there are some nice 'extra' elements for counting. Muffin is a boy)
2. Buster's Farm, Rod Campbell (library, reborrowed touch and feel but still a bit boring. Buster is a boy)
3. Dancing feet, Lindsey Craig (library, reborrowed. great rhymes)
4. Mouse is small, Mary Murphy (library, great for page turning, and we loved the spider, non gendered)
5. Hairy MaClary from Donaldson's Dairy, Lynley Dodd (from F, first 'proper' story book, lovely rhyming and great before a nap)
6. The Other Ark, Lynley Dodd (library, good rhyming, but too long for a 10 mo old)
7. That's not my frog, Fiona Watt and Rachel Wells (library, another touch and feel book. possibly jumping the shark)
8. My Friends, Taro Gomi (birthday present, a firm favorite!)
9. Bus Stops, Taro Gomi (birthday present, really lovely)
10. Spring is Here, Taro Gomi (birthday present, a bit weird...)
11. Sense and Sensibility: A BabyLit Opposites Primer, Jennifer Adams and Alison Oliver (birthday present, very nice but really for mummy)
12. This is Not My Hat, Jon Klassen (birthday present, delightfully subversive)
13. A****** P***** and the Cheeky Monkey, Tinyme.com (birthday present, personalised book with hilarious pictures)
14. Giraffes Can't Dance, Giles Andreae and Guy Parker-Rees (birthday present, lovely colours and rhyming)
15. Slinky Malinki, Lynley Dodd (Birthday present, lovely rhyming a bit long for now)
16. I Like Peas, Lorena Siminovich (library, actually great book about vegetables)
17. Elusive Moose, Joan Gannij and Clare Beaton (library, beautiful art, rhyme is a bit lame but it might be more successful when she can look for the moose)
18. Hairy Maclary's Caterwaul Caper, Lynley Dodd (library, lovely to read, fabulous rhymes, but sad that is has been confirmd that all the dogs are male... Reread at 14 mo and baby can now pick out objects)
19. Hairy Maclary Scattercat, Lynley Dodd (library, lovely to read, fabulous rhymes, and some girl characters, but all recurring characters male - AFAIK. Reread at 14 mo and baby can now pick out objects)
20. Five Little Meercats: A Counting book, Marcia Piwowarski and Sally Hopgood (library, the 3D meerkats are fun, but the rhyming in this is very hard to read! it doesn't scan very well)
21. Zoo Time Colours, Ruth Owen and Emma Randal (library, cute but simple)
22. Hairy Maclary, Shoo, Lynley Dodd (library, a bit long for now)
23. Animals should definitely not wear clothing, Judi Barret (library, good fun)
24. Quentin Blake's ten frogs, Quentin Blake (library, nice counting book)
25. Where is the green sheep?, Mem Fox (library, a big favorite)
26. Wiggle, Taro Gomi (library, fun read and very pretty)
27. Ten little fingers and ten little toes, Mem Fox (library, very sweet but we didn't read it much)
28. Yoo-hoo, Ladybug, Mem Fox (library, fun read and very pretty, reborrowed as baby loves to pick out the objects and find ladybug- about 13/14 months)
29. Hide and Seek, Taro Gomi (library, a bit more advanced than other Taro Gomi books)
30. Baby bedtime, Mem Fox (library, very sweet but we didn't read it much)
31. Don't let the pigeon stay up late, Mo Willems (library, I loved it but a bit advanced for baby)
32. These are my feet, Judy Horacek (library, sweet rhymes, a bit advanced but it showed me baby knew what her feet were!!)
33. Where's Walrus?, Stephen Savage (library, lovely illustrations, no words but baby loved picking out the walrus)
34. Pip and Posey: Look and Say, Axel Scheffler (library, a great book for searching for objects)
35. My first busy home, DK Publishing (library, good pictures of objects, though most were a bit advanced for baby - 15 months)
36. All aboard the pirate ship!, Munro, Fiona (library, lots of objects to ear for and flaps to open)
37. Tiny little fly, Rosen, Michael (library, great fun to point out the fly)
38. Maisy's rainbow dream, Cousins, Lucy (library, great colours - love Maisie!)
39. Slinky Malinki, early bird, Dodd, Lynley (library, didn't read this much...)
40. Incredible animals : explore real habitats around the world
41. Push the button, Begin Smart books (library, probably too simple and the button is very hard to get a noise out of!)
42. Good night, sleep tight, Fox, Mem (library, a bit long but lots of good old fashioned rhymes)
43. Maisy's plane, Cousins, Lucy (library, great board book - still love Maisie!)
44. Game day, Parton, Daron (library, football touch and feel)
45. Search and find : fairy tales as children have never seen them before, Itoiz, Mayana (library, probably a bit to advanced for !7 months - lots of object ot find but they're a bit obscure)
46. From head to toe, Eric CArle (library, fabulous interactive book to learn body parts/actions)
47. Alice and Aldo / Lester, Alison
48. Dr. Seuss's Oh, baby! Go, baby! / Seuss, Dr.
49. If all the animals came inside / Pinder, Eric
50. Jane Eyre / Wang, Jack
51. Where the wild things are. / Sendak, Maurice.
52. Little bear's colours, Hissey, Jane
53. Alfie's alphabet, Hughes, Shirley
54. Nest , Hurley, Jorey,
55. Harold and the purple crayon., Johnson, Crockett
56. Mr Darcy, Field, Alex (library, in no way true to the original 'Pride and Prejudice', though Caroline Bingley is literally a cow...)
57. The short giraffe, Flory, Neil (library, has unsettling similariries ot Giraffe's Can't Dance - i.e. stalking insect)
58. Rosie's walk, Hutchins, Pat (library, apparenlty a classic and acutally very popular)
59. Frankenstein : an anatomy primer, Adams, Jennifer (library, great body parts book)
60. An Australian 1, 2, 3 of animals , Bancroft, Bronwyn (Library, lovely pictures - goes to 12 for some reason)
61. Boo to a goose., Fox, Mem (library, beautiful paper artwork)
62. Giving, Hughes, Shirley (love these Shirley Hughes books
63. Touch and count with Peter Rabbit.,
64. Growl like a tiger, Lester, Alison (Library, nice boardbook with animal noises)
65. There are no animals in this book! (only feelings), Sanchez, Chani,
66. I want my hat back, Klassen, Jon
67. The cat and the dog, Dahan, Andre.
68. Never smile at a crocodile, Lawrence, Jack
69. This is my digger, Greenwell, Jessica.
70. Hide-and-seek penguins , Watt, Fiona.
71. Mister Seahorse, Carle, Eric (library, not as successful as other Eric Carle's)
72. Today is Monday, Carle, Eric (library, not as successful as other Eric Carle's)
73. A book of sleep, Na, Il Sung
74. Old MacDonald had a farm, Toms, Kate
75. The wheels on the bus, Foot, Mandy
76. Where is the green sheep?, Mem Fox
77. Hairy Maclary's Bone, Lynley Dodd (xmas present)
78. Hairy Maclary and Zachary Quack, Lynley Dodd (xmas present)
79. Hairy Maclary's Rumpus at the Vets, Lynley Dodd (xmas present)

Book List 2014

What I read in 2014:

1. Invisible Kingdoms, Stephen Utley ()
   
2. The Back of the Back of Beyond, Edwina Harvey ()
   
3. Everything is a Graveyard, Jason Fischer ()
   
4. Assymetry, Thoraiya Dyer ()
   
5. Caution: Contains Small Parts, Kirstyn McDermott ()
   
6. This Mutant Life, ed. Ben Langdon()
   
7. This Mutant Life: Bad Company, ed. Ben Langdon()
   
8. The Great Unknown, ed. Angela Meyer()
   
9. A Killer Among Demons, ed. Craig Bezant()
   
10. Fearsome Journeys, ed. Jonathan Strahan()
    
11. A Discovery of Witches, Deborah Harkness (great history and science in fairly standard romance)
    
12. Broken Homes, Ben Aaronovitch (a bit wish washy and an UNEXPECTED CLIFFHANGER)
    
13. Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell (not 100% sure I haven't read this already, but very interesting)
    
14. Trucksong, Andrew Macrae (i think i need to read this again - the soundtrack is amazing)
    
15. The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman (simple, slight, odd )
    
16. The Patternmaker, edited by Lucy Sussex (random 90's anthology of no obvious significance)
    
17. Bitter Greens, Kate Forsyth (amazing scholarship, fantastic intertwined stories)
    
18. A Dance with Dragones, George RR Martin (good story progression, several cliffhangers, now I can complain with everyone else!)
    
19. When God was a Rabbit, Sarah Winman (unexpected, delightful)
    
20. The Hare with Amber Eyes, Edmund de Waal (indulgent, but still an amazing story)
    
21. The Biographer's Tale, A. S. Byatt (loved the concept, but had trouble getting into it until quite late)
    
22. New Moon, Stephanie Meyer (look i read it ok)
    
23. Eclipse, Stephanie Meyer (still reading...)
    
24. Breaking Dawn, Stephanie Meyer (this one particularly felt like fan fiction)
    
25. Quintana of Charyn, Melina Marchetta (may have enjoyed 'Froi' better, but this was a very satisfying end *sniff*)
    
26. Divergent, Veronica Roth (fast paced, but it's no Hunger Games)
    
27. The Secret Lives of Books, Rosaleen Love (simple, complex, beautiful)
    
28. Black Painted Fingernails, Steven Herrick (short, sweet, *ok*)
    
29. Midnighters: The Secret Hour, Scott Westerfeld (fine story, but don't feel the need to read more of the series)
    
30. The Thief-Takers Apprentice, Stephen Deas (ehh)
    
31. Bound, Alan Baxter (yeah... not great)
32. Cottillion, Georgette Heyer (my first GH! was ok, but I may need to read more to really get into them)
    
33. The Secret Diary of Lizze Bennet, Bernie Su and Kate Rorick (*love* great accompaniment to the video series)
    
34. The Godless, Ben Peek (really really good big fat fantasy)
    
35. The Fault in our Stars, John Green (fantastic, intense, cryfest)
    
36. Destroy the Joint, ed. Jane Caro (great selection of essays which both inspired me and made me angry)
    
37. A Thread of Grace, Mary Doria Russell (interesting, important topic, but heavy going)
38. We are all completely beside ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler (amazing story about an amazing family)
39. Angel Dust, Ian McHugh
40. Captives, Angela Meyer
41. The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, Angela Slatter
42. Difficult Second Album: more stories of Xenobiology, Space Elevators, and Bats Out Of Hell, Simon Petrie and Edwina Harvey (eds)
43. 200 Shorter Stories, C. H. Aalberry
44. Other Stories', and Other Stories, Adam Browne
45. Last Year, When We Were Young, Andrew McKiernan
46. Death at the Blue Elephant, Janeen Webb
47. Stories of the Sand, Dirk Strasser
48. The Cursed - Volume 1, Brett Kiellerop
49. Dying Embers, M. R. Cosby
50. Mist and Mirrors, John Stolarczyk
51. Phantazein, Tehani Wessely
52. Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories, Alisa Krasnostein (ed) and Julia Rios (ed)
53. Reach for Infinity, Jonathan Strahan
54. Use Only As Directed, Simon Petrie and Edwina Harvey (eds)
55. The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Eight, Jonathan Strahan
56. Kisses by Clockwork, Liz Grzyb
57. Suspended in Dusk, Simon Dewar
58. The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, P.S. Cottier and Tim Jones
59. Fearsome Magics, Jonathan Strahan
60. SNAFU, G. N. Braun (ed)
61. The World To Come, Patrick West
62. Focus 2013, Tehani Wessely (ed)
63. Amok: An Anthology of Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction, Dominica Malcolm (ed)
64. Legendary, J.F.R. Coates
65. 18, Meghann Laverick (copy editor)

Agathon #13: The Murder at the Vicarage (1930)

Tansy and I started out with a challenge to read every book written by Agatha Christie, in order of publication – we’re blogging as we go along. We spoil all the things!
 
KATHRYN:
So, first, I just need to get it off my chest that one of my first shocks in this book is that Lettice Protheroe’s name is Lettice, and not Lettuce. I have read and seen this book several times before and to me she is always *Lettuce*. Having read the book before also meant that the murderer was not a surprise, nor were any of the other mysteries that were uncovered during the story. And this meant I could really focus on how Miss Marple is portrayed in her first full length book*. Miss Marple is certainly not the star of ‘The Murder at the Vicarage’, which is narrated, perhaps appropriately, by the Vicar (Mr Clements). She is introduced of one of several gossipy old ladies at a morning tea held by the Vicar’s wife, the inappropriate Griselda, and both the Vicar and Griselda have relatively low opinions of these ‘old cats’, as they are referred to often. Actually I suspect that Christie might have been writing this book so that Miss Marple herself was a surprise - it only becomes apparent that Miss Marple’s ‘gossip’ has rather more substance than Mrs Price Ridley’s or Miss Hartnell’s as the story develops. I wonder if anyone realised how iconic she would become.

The narration by the Vicar is quite reminiscent to that of Hastings narration for Poirot - or even of Dr. James Sheppard (the murderer) in ‘The Murder of Roger Ackeroyd’, and it seems to be a common technique for Christie to use in her proper ‘whodunnits’ (as compared to the slightly whacky spy stuff we have also seen to-date). I guess it’s a good technique because the narrator can be led on a few wild goose chases and suitably surprised when the murderer is revealed. The narrator can also be unreliable - quite spectacularly so in the case of Dr Sheppard - and even I think a little bit in the case of the Vicar, who I think doesn’t like to admit just how much he loves his inappropriate wife.

Miss Marple doesn’t have a constant companion, so I will be looking with interest to see how the narration is undertaken in future Marple books (because for the life of me I cannot remember!!) I was surprised that Miss Marple’s nephew, the writer Raymond West, was present in this, her first book. I had imagined he was an addition of later stories, and he was a good deal more fashionable and callow than I remember him, though again perhaps that again is coloured by the Vicar’s narration (and potential jealousy of the attraction of Griselda to Raymond!)

And just a word on the murderer(s). Is it my imagination, but have a number of Christie’s murderers to-date been rather charming men who turn out to be far more ruthless than first seems? Perhaps I should start a tally. I also wonder how scandalous it was that Lawrence Redding and Mrs Protheroe were having an extramarital affair in 1930. It’s not so shocking now, but there are a number of hints that several ladies could have been gallivanting around with Lawrence, which surely was a bit risque?

All in all, I really enjoyed this reread of ‘The Murder at the Vicarage’. It’s full of excellent misdirection, character studies and village gossip, which is really what I think of when I think of a Christie whodunnit.

*Apparently Miss Marple’s first appearance was in a short story ‘The Tuesday Night Club’, written in 1926. However the collection it was published in - ‘The Thirteen Problems’ - was not published until 1932, so we have a few books to go until we get to it...

TANSY:
I really enjoyed this! I hadn’t read it before so I was quite surprised at how unappealing Miss Marple was early on - she seemed really gossipy and horrible and gradually became more and more likeable as the story went on. By the end she felt more like the Miss Marple I know from later books - gentler and more knowing and subtle. Possibly this is a case of the character simply growing as the author wrote her, but I like to think it’s because, as you say, the vicar’s perspective also shifts throughout the novel.

The story felt so similar to Roger Ackroyd, largely because of the way the narrator was set up, that I was almost convinced that our lovely vicar had in fact done the murder himself, except that I was fairly sure if she had pulled that trick again I would have heard about it. The Len-Griselda relationship was fascinating, and itself something of a mystery to be unravelled. I was very happy that there was nothing at all to be suspicious about either of them, as Griselda in particular was such a funny character. How terribly modern of her to commit to being an appalling housewife, and to cleave to her bad maid in order to keep her!

Len reluctantly convincing Mary to stay was one of my favourite scenes in the book, but it was full of all kinds of domestic gems.

The plot of this one is fascinating too - it’s another tricky one, though not as famous I guess as ‘they all did it’ or ‘the narrator did it’ to be talked about more? But I like that once again Christie is providing meta commentary on the genre of the murder mystery, in this case noting that realistically, the most obvious suspect is usually the murderer. And of course this has the whole ‘if a murderer was clever they would act suspiciously because acting innocent is a dead giveaway’ trick to it, which is nicely done.

Raymond was quite appalling! I’ve never seen him on screen before, only remember Miss Marple talking about him, so I was quite amused by what a vulgar intellectual snob he seemed to be. Again, though, the vicar’s perspective colours everything.

All in all, this is a lovely launch for Miss Marple and I like how much we get to see her working out how exactly a little old lady should go about being a detective, from first principles. Can you believe it was another twelve years before she appeared in another novel? Thank goodness for short stories!

Coming up:
1931: The Sittaford Mystery (also Murder at Hazelmoor ), Emily Trefusis, Inspector Narracott
1932: Peril at End House, Hercule Poirot, Arthur Hastings, Chief Inspector Japp
1932: The Thirteen Problems, Miss Marple Shorts
1933: Lord Edgware Dies (also Thirteen at Dinner ), Hercule Poirot, Arthur Hastings, Chief Inspector Japp

What Baby Read (2013)

1. The Very Hungy Caterpillar, Eric CArle (from Mummy, purchased in NYC, caterpillar is a boy)
2. The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, Beatrix Potter (from Grandma, baby's first story)
3. The Little Read Hen, Retold by Vera Southgate (from A, good classic)
4. That's Not My Angel, Fiona Watt (from E, touchy book)
5. Where is Baby?, Sally Rippin (from Better Beginnings, short, probably better with interaction)
6. Baby Boo, Katie Rowbottom (from C, great baby faces)
7. Tickle time!, Sandra Boynton (library, a bit monotonous)
8. Goodnight moon, Margaret Wise Brown (library, a bit weird)
9. Busy buddies, Cece Bell (library, unmemorable)
10. Squeak, squeak!, Beth Harwood (library, gimmicky - not useful at this time)
11. The biggest thing in the world , Kenneth C. Steven (library, a bit mushy, bear is a boy)
12. Hop on Pop Dr. Seuss (library, seustastic! would reborrow)
13. Where is Lighty Faust the lion? Anna Hymas (library, couldn't get the point of this one)
14. Books for babies, Annemarie Florian (library, uninspiring)
15. Possum magic numbers, Mem Fox (library, very pretty! good counting book)
16. Wow! said the owl : a book about colours! Tim Hopgood (library, great book! would reborrow, owl is a girl)
17. Buster's zoo, Rod Campbell (library, not ready for touch books yet)
18. Dancing feet! Lindsey Craig and Marc Brown (library, Publisher's Weekly Starred Review! And a good book!)
19. What is black and white? Petr Horacek (library, short and possibly existential)
20. Moomin's little book of opposites, apparently not Tove Jansson (library, Moomins! nice book to read)
21. Don't lose Pigley, Wibbly Pig! Mick Inkpen (library, genuinely exciting! almost :-)
22. Farmyard Beat, Lindsey Craig and Marc Brown (library, possibly better than Dancing Feet! Farmer Sue.)
23. A Squash and a Squeeze, Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler (library, relatively long)
24. Wibbly Pig likes pictures, Mick Inkpen (library, less story than 'Don't lose Piggely...' but still a good book)
25. Where is the Green Sheep?, Mem Fox and Judy Horacek (library, a very long of a board book!; it will be good when baby is a bit older)
26. Play Baby Play, Marilyn Janovitz (library, good rhyming)
27. Toddle Waddle, Julia Donaldson and Nick Sharratt (library, quite clever)
28. Find the Duck, Stephen Cartwright (library, not quite old enough for this book, why is the duck a boy?)
29. My Family, Brimax Publishing (library, good photos and activity flaps, very heteronormative family)
30. Animals should definitely not wear clothing, Judi Barrett and Ron Barrett (library, hilarious, definitely would reborrow. Update: And have reborrowed.)
31. Margot and Mo... and numbers, Nina Govan (library, very pretty counting book, but quite short)
32. 123 Zoo, Puck (library, great bold colours but no words, plus conversation starters that I never read... might be better when she's older)
33. Wiggle, Taro Gomi (library, OMFG best book ever - I would BUY this book! Update: first book to be reborrowed from library)
34. Jane Eyre: A Counting Primer, Jennifer Adams and Alison Oliver (library, very pretty book but only hints at the story)
35. Buster's Farm, Rod Campbell (library, touch and feel book and she is beginning to get into that (@ 6mo))
36. baby, boo!, Beth Harwood (library, not as good as the one we own, lovely non-gendered faces though)
37. Little Ted's Big Adventure, ABC For Kids (library, beautiful pictures. reading the back, perhaps this is actually a song?)
38. Whose Baby?, Fiona Munro and Jo Garden (library, a little book with GIANT flaps - which sounds kind of wrong. Story ok, but the flaps are its strongest point. Some odd baby choices but i guess they needed variety)
39. That's not my dinosaur, Fiona Watt and Rachel Wells (library, another touch and feel book. Textures are a little advanced but baby is defininely getting the idea)
40. Up Close, Gay Wegerif (library, fairly abstract artwork - attractive but probably a bit advanced)
41. 10 in the bed, david ellwand (library, very large board book, cute teddy pictures)
42. Ollie's Song, Rob Lewis (bookcrossing, a story book rather than a board book. good bed time reading. ollie is a boy)
43. Pride and Prejudice: A counting primer, Jennifer Adams, Alison Oliver (Mummy bought, very pretty but let's not kid ourselves that this was bought for the baby...)
44. That's not my meercat, Fiona Watt and Rachel Wells (Mummy bought, most successful touch and feel book yet - fur is very good texture right now (@7mo) nicely non gendered)
45. That's not my tractor, Fiona Watt and Rachel Wells (library, a bit advanced but a great mix of non-furry textures. shiny/sparkly most successful for now)
46. baby's best friend, Rachael Hale (library, good and partly non-gendered baby faces, but a bit overloaded on the cute puppy front. too saccharine for mummy)
47. My Dad is the Best Playground, Luciana Navarro POwell (library, nice sentiment but far too saccharine for mummy)
48. Bunnies by the Bay: Shapes, Five Mile Press (library, very pretty, faurly subtle touch and feel - might be more appropriate when a bit older - nearly at 8 mo now...)
49. That's not my tractor, Fiona Watt and Rachel Wells (library, another touch and feel book. Most successful non-furry touch and feel to-date - sparkly is of interest in particular)
50. Baby's Treasure Hunt, Roger Priddy (from C, lovely pictures still a bti young to pick out the treasures (8 mo))
51. That's not my santa, Fiona Watt and Rachel Wells (library, another touch and feel book.)
52. Pop-up Peekaboo!, Dawn Sirett et al. (library, was more interested in the pop-ups than I expected.)
53. Five Little Ducks, graphics by Mike Jolley and Emma Dodd (library, not super interesting, but nice to sing along too. Doesn't shy away from the traumatic account of Mother Duck losing ALL her children!)
54. Peekaboo!, Taro Gomi (for Xmas, lovely pictures but haven't tried the mask aspect)
55. Alice in Wonderland: A colour primer, Jennifer Adams and Alison Oliver (for Xmas, such a pretty pretty book. better than P&P at this time (9 mo) - gasp!)
56. Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles: A sounds primer, Jennifer Adams and Alison Oliver (for Xmas, another very pretty book. sounds also very appropriate for this age(9 mo))
57. That's not my bunny.., Fiona Watt and Rachel Wells (from J and S, more great touch and feel, though shiny eyes are a bit unsettling!!)
58. That's not my elephant.., Fiona Watt and Rachel Wells (from J and S, touch and feel with a nice variety of textures)
59. Peekafun Chunky Baby Book, Dawn Sirett (from S and W, lots of lovely pages to turn but sad there are 4 male characters ans only 2 female. why not 50/50?)

Agathon #12 - The Mysterious Mr Quin [1930]

Tansy and I started out with a challenge to read every book written by Agatha Christie, in order of publication – we’re blogging as we go along. We spoil all the things!  

TANSY:
What a bizarre collection of stories!

 I’m not sure if these are terribly meta or actually paranormal – it seems to me that in these tales Christie is actually pointing out the inherent ridiculousness of the coincidences and highly mannered events of her own novels by making the coincidence factor so terribly high that it borders on magic.

Satterthwaite and his odd friendship with Mr Quinn is a hard relationship to pin down – it feels almost seductive in some stories (totally slashtastic) and in others something more innocent and playful, reminiscent of when the Doctor breaks in a new companion in Doctor Who.

Many elements in the stories feel deeply like Christie – the characters and backgrounds – but the stories themselves are so tangled up with gothic romance, ghostly prediction and a kind of magical realism that they feel also totally unlike her other work.

I’m bewildered. What does the last story even MEAN? Did Mr Quin murder the Russian dancer himself? Is he Death? If he’s Death, why does he spend so much time trying to prevent tragedies and suicides, especially those involving young lovers?

Some of the stories are quite playful and fun – the one with the opal and the Chinese box made me laugh out loud. “He’s been in prison a year!” and they remind me at times of the Isaac Asimov Black Widowers short stories in their construction. I wonder at what the effect of them would be on their own, as originally published, rather than in this whole collection.

 Still bewildering, I imagine.

Also, have they made THIS one into a Poirot or Miss Marple TV movie? Because I would really love to see how the hell they could manage it.  

KATHRYN:
 So, like, I think this is my favorite Christie short story collection to-date. Which is not to say that I loved it and want to marry it, but it did irritate me much less than I remember previous collections (note: I am am opting to AVOID rereading earlier entries to check the veracity of my memory!!)

I totally agree that this collection had a very different, almost mystical, tone compared to Christie’s other works to date (second note: from Christie’s foreword in my copy, she refers to Quin as ‘not quite human’,and that she wrote ghost stories before she wrote crime, which suggests that the paranormal notes were intentional, and Christie did indeed write SPECULATIVE FICTION). However, I think it’s for this reason that I was happy to accept a level of melodrama and coincidence that I would have found unbelievable in a Poirot or Tommy and Tuppence story (or Miss Marple, but we haven’t technically got to her yet).

 I remain bemused by Mr Quin – he seemed to be just a useful plot point in more than one story. However, I did rather love Mr Satterthwaite, and his characterisation as a gossip who knows EVERYBODY (worth knowing, of course), but who also feels he lives outside of everything as an observer. It seemed to me that his character developed over the course of the collection (intentionally or not), and perhaps it was this development that made the collection more interesting for me, compared to the others where the main players have been previously developed in novels, and therefore remain fairly static.

In the forward to my copy, Christie also suggests that the collection also describes the story of the original Harlequin, but Wikipedia tells me there are many interpretations of Harlequin so I can’t work out which one she actually means… (Third note: I did check IMDB, though, and it does not appear that this particular work has been adapted for the small or large screen!)  

COMING NEXT:  
The Murder at the Vicarage (1930) 
The Sittaford Mystery (also Murder at Hazelmoor) (1931)