Comments | valancy_s: RECOMMENDATION SUNDAY

valancy_s

RECOMMENDATION SUNDAY

Feb 14, 2010 19:21

BOOK: For their 2nd unit I've had my students read Agatha Christie's The Secret of Chimneys, so I'd better recommend it now before I've read 21 essays about it! One of Christie's stand-alones (some recurring characters but no Poirot or Marple), this mystery has a light tone, international hijinks and a dash of romance. It also, in true Christie ( Read more... )

recommendations

Comments 6

litlover12 February 15 2010, 00:52:54 UTC

Hmmm . . . since it's Christie, I wouldn't bet on "fairly." :-)

breathingbooks February 15 2010, 01:32:37 UTC

Chimneys! I love the initial dead body scene. :D

steve_mollmann February 15 2010, 03:51:58 UTC

Julie has me beat-- I've been working on Betty Crocker's Cook It Quick for eighteen months now, and I've yet to finish. Of course, she probably did more than 1-2 recipes a week!

valancy_s February 15 2010, 11:49:39 UTC

I think that in the movie it's something like 515 recipes in 365 days. So yeah, more than two a week!

But apparently Julia Child herself was not impressed by the "stunt" and said that's not a serious way to learn cooking.

otahyoni February 15 2010, 04:52:41 UTC

Heh. I like you letting us decide whether or not Christie plays fair. I'd always heard she was a cheater, but I remember being shocked despite that the first time I read a Poirot novel where his solution hinged on a clue we never actually saw him discover. I even went back to check, and it was never in the book. I was flummoxed. That's only happened once in the half dozen or more Christie novels I've read, but that sort of thing tends to stick with you.

That being said, I prefer her one-offs to her recurring characters (though I like Tommy and Tuppence), so maybe the fact that I haven't read a lot of Poirot or (any) Marple means I haven't run across as many "cheats."

valancy_s February 15 2010, 11:52:51 UTC

You probably have enough information to guess the killer in this one, but there's other stuff she blatantly withholds. My students keep trying to tell me that "she has to or there wouldn't be any suspense" - hmmm. It's a fun book, anyway.

The one Marple I've read, The Mirror Crack'd, actually played by the rules but got me with the red herrings completely. I was impressed. But I know that's not always the case.