More Fun Than a Barrel of Murders Monday
What I've Finished Reading
The stories in The Listerdale Mystery are nearly all in the "silly fun" category of Christie shorts - lots of perky young women testing their men for manliness, and downtrodden young men getting a new lease on life through some staged or accidental adventure. When you line them all up together, Christie's faux-adventure rom-com romps get a little samey, but they're all right in isolation - though nothing has yet come up to the gold/cheese standard of The Man in the Brown Suit, with its high-quality hand-wringing and island-pacing action. There's one genuinely chilling murder story in "Philomel Cottage" and a black-comic one, with a predictably wicked twist, in "Accident" - the latter featuring an intrepid investigator who strides manfully forth to bite off more than he can chew.
What I'm Reading Now
Murder at the ABA is a tale of murder! At a meeting of the American Booksellers' Association! What could be better? It's important to note, as the book itself does at the outset, that it is both written by Isaac Asimov and includes a character called Isaac Asimov who is a "prolific writer and self-esteemed wit." Is this a good idea, the best idea, a bad idea, or the WORST idea? Or is it, as sometimes happens, a four-car pileup incorporating all of the above? All I can tell you is that it introduces a straw feminist character on the first page, and on the second, burdens the s.f. with the minor (but hilarious!) humiliation of a nip-slip.
(NB: not actually all that hilarious).
What I Plan to Read Next
Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie and Unfinished Portrait by Mary Westmacott (aka Agatha Christie).
The stories in The Listerdale Mystery are nearly all in the "silly fun" category of Christie shorts - lots of perky young women testing their men for manliness, and downtrodden young men getting a new lease on life through some staged or accidental adventure. When you line them all up together, Christie's faux-adventure rom-com romps get a little samey, but they're all right in isolation - though nothing has yet come up to the gold/cheese standard of The Man in the Brown Suit, with its high-quality hand-wringing and island-pacing action. There's one genuinely chilling murder story in "Philomel Cottage" and a black-comic one, with a predictably wicked twist, in "Accident" - the latter featuring an intrepid investigator who strides manfully forth to bite off more than he can chew.
What I'm Reading Now
Murder at the ABA is a tale of murder! At a meeting of the American Booksellers' Association! What could be better? It's important to note, as the book itself does at the outset, that it is both written by Isaac Asimov and includes a character called Isaac Asimov who is a "prolific writer and self-esteemed wit." Is this a good idea, the best idea, a bad idea, or the WORST idea? Or is it, as sometimes happens, a four-car pileup incorporating all of the above? All I can tell you is that it introduces a straw feminist character on the first page, and on the second, burdens the s.f. with the minor (but hilarious!) humiliation of a nip-slip.
(NB: not actually all that hilarious).
What I Plan to Read Next
Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie and Unfinished Portrait by Mary Westmacott (aka Agatha Christie).