What to do Nr. 1

Reading, obviously.

These books are currently on my nightstand waiting to be read.

Updates - B

B as books.

I've been reading a lot lately, some books were good, some were average and some ... meh.

- Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster. That was a nice surprise! Easy and entertaining to read albeit a tad predictable. Great writing style and a very likeable main character. I could easily imagine myself writing such letters :-) Thumbs up.

"The world is full of happiness, and plenty to go round, if you are only willing to take the kind that comes your way. The whole secret is in being pliable."

"I've discovered the true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now. Not to be for ever regretting the past, or anticipating the future; but to get the most that you can out of this very instant... Most people don't live; they just race."

- The Daffodil Mystery by Edgar Wallace. A lovely classical mystery with some likable characters and unexpected twists.

- The Mystery of Three Quarters by Sophie Hannah. Another wanna-be Poirot story. While the book starts very very promising with a highly interesting plot, it fades away and becomes increasingly dumb towards the end. I've read it about a month ago and I already cannot remember who the killer was. No surprises, nothing special, nothing memorable. And why can't the Battenberg cake be called by its name? In the age of The Great British Bake Off, we know all the cakes by their names :-)

- The Boy Who Followed Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. Oh, boy... No wonder I got this book for 2 € only. Nothing happens in the first 150 pages, then Tom randomly kills a guy, dresses up as a woman, goes into a gay bar, does not steal the ransom money, which he could, and... that's it. No twists, no surprises, no action, no subplots - no plot, actually. Meh.

- Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Burglar by Maurice Leblanc. Oh, a classic. Needs no description. Pure joy to read. Except one or two stories that I didn't like, the rest is just ... charming.

Reading

On my way to recovery - still pretty much unable to do anything - but I can read. So I've read.

- Joel Dicker: The Baltimore Boys.
A very enjoyable story about life. I felt the vibe, I understood his way of thinking, I can relate to his cluelessness and I would want to hang out with them. They must have been a cool gang... Even the random time-jumping is forgiven.

- Tadej Golob: Jezero.
A Slovenian "Scandinavian" crime novel that I thoroughly enjoyed. Highly realistic characters, realistic dialogues, interesting story. However! The writer should stick to the rule "if you're writing fiction, keep it fictional". There are way to many things from real life, which are completely unnecessary and irrelevant for the story. The author included them because... I don't know why. To show off? That's the only thing I find (highly) disturbing in the otherwise very enjoyable book.

- The Golden Treasures of Troy. About the life of Heinrich Schliemann. A truly fascinating life he had and this is just a short summary of the important events in his life - and yet so captivating.

- Le Petit Prince. I've read the book in Slovenian before but this is the first time I've read it in French. There were some words I had to look up but all in all I'm pleasantly surprised of how much I remembered!

Oh, and, of course, what can be better than being on sick leave during Le Tour.

It just makes me want to go back to Vosges, Massiv Central, Alps, Pyrenees ... One day.

Reading update

It's been a while since I've written a reading post. In the meantime I've read:

 - Gestatten, mein Name ist Cox. I loved this book as a kid and still quite like it now. It's a shame I've only got the second book in the series so the beginning and the introduction of the characters is missing... But not a bad book at all.

- Doctor in Love by Richard Gordon. Bwahahaha... A true stereotypical and quite hilarious romantic comedy. You can tell that it was written by an actual doctor. So, so enjoyable.

- The Cuckoo’s Calling,  

- The Silkworm and 

- Career of Evil by JK's alter-ego. I liked the first one, the second one was OK, the third was meh at best. The main characters are cool but her books need some good editing before publishing. 

- Simon Reeve's Step by Step. Brilliant. Interesting and just brilliant.

Reading update

So, I've been reading quite a lot lately.

Not because I'm stressed but rather because I'm relaxed :-)

I've read:

1) Turtles all the Way Down by John Green. Loved it. Fresh and young and entertaining and serious and relaxed at the same time.

2) Boccaccio's Decameron. Ooooh, a classic. In a way I'm surprised that I haven't read it yet, although I quite understand now why we haven't read it at school :-) Needless to say, loved it. Such a classic cannot be rated, it's hors catégorie.

3) Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes. Oh, dear. Ooooh, dear. I liked the film but the book is a) nothing like the film, b) boring as hell, c) shallow and empty and d) almost impossible to read. Do I have to say I didn't like it?

4) The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna. Another one of his books that doesn't disappoint. So lovely predictably unpredictibe and amusingly entertaining.

5) Blindness by Jose Saramago. Whooaaa. Disturbing. Thought-provoking. Brilliant.

If you can see, look. If you can look, observe.

6) A Little History of the World or rather Eine kurze Weltgeschichte für junge Leser by Ernst H. Gombrich. This is probably THE one history book that everyone should read. A little unconventional (it turns out it was originally written in 1935! and only slightly revised) but explains history in a way I never heard it. It is Euro-centric and obviously catholic but nevertheless, highly recommended.

Reading update

Just a quick recap on the books I've recently read.

Four Colin Dexter novels. I quite enjoy reading them but I just wish he would write about Cambridge and not Oxford so that I would recongnise every street, every bridge and every house.

I've read two further Jo Nesbø novels, including the Leopard. As uncomfortable as it is to read (especially the beginning), I quite liked the location -  a mountain hut in the middle of nowhere in Norway.

I've also re-read several Edgar Wallace novels, just because I have them at home. Ah, the English countryside...

And oddly enough, I read a John Green novel, Looking for Alaska, just because I got it for free in a bookstore. And I must admit I enjoyed it. Maybe just because it was so different from what I read currently or maybe because I miss some teenage immaturity in my life or maybe just because it's a good book. And no, I don't have any photos of Alaska :-)

Some more quotes

"Science is spectral analysis. Art is light synthesis."
Karl Krauss.

"Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing but nobody else does."
Steuart Henderson Britt 

In case you're wondering where I'm getting these deep quotes from - Inspector Morse :-)

Books, books, books.

To relax my mind, I need to read. So I read a lot. Recently I've read

- Jo Nesbø's The Bat: 
not bad, will surely read some more Harry Hole novels.

- Nick Hornby's Juliet, Naked:
I bought this book ages ago but hated the cover design so much that I never touched it. Surprisingly enjoyable, actually. And someone even recorded You and Your Perfect Life and uploaded it to Youtube. The Naked version :-) 

- Mike Gayle's Turning Thirty: 
Aah, the good old times :-)

-Mike Gayle's Turning Forty:
Hmmm. Kind of depressing, innit? 

What worries me is that when I was 30 and read the Turning Thirty book, I didn't like it. Now I think it's quite enjoyable to read. Now I'm 40 and reading the Turning Forty book. And I don't really like it. Will I find it enjoyable in ten years' time? Hope not. 

Anyway, the reason why I haven't posted much recently is that I'm preparing yet another book myself. This time it's a book for graduate students. A lot of work. A lot.

Reading

I managed to read quite a few books in the past few months. There is so much going on during the day that I need to relax my mind a bit before going to bed.

And reading is perfect for mind-relaxation.

So I've (re-)read:
- The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
- Diamonds are Forever by Ian Fleming
- Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming
- The Green Archer by Edgar Wallace
- The Feathered Serpent by Edgar Wallace
- Ralph's Party by I-dont-remember-whom
- How to Be Good by Nick Hornby
- Funny Girl by Nick Hornby
- Ich bin dann mal weg by Hape Kerkeling

Most of them are quite enjoyable. Oddly enough, Funny girl seemed to be the least funny... 

And I've just learned that Hape's book was made into a film! 

Just like all the good books I read.

A new Poirot!

Where did August go?!?

I did lots of things (painting windows, making window shutters, sewing, writing textbooks, nothing ...) but also a lot of reading.

And of course I read Sophie Hannah's Poirot murder mystery. Since it kind of qualifies as an Agatha Christie novel, I'll rate it as usual.

84. The Monogram Murders (Poirot by Sophie Hannah)
A new Poirot novel. Yey!
However, I must be honest, I did not really enjoy it. It included way too much explaining, too many lies and too much repetition, basically just too many words. There were not enough clues for the reader and yet I guessed the murder about half way through the book. The mystery was good enough but the book should end about 100 pages earlier with a simple explanation. What I also missed were the witty one-liners by Poirot.

Oh, and the name Patrick Ive is a total miss. Everytime I saw it, I thought it was missing  an apostrophe. Annoying.

Favourite Guest Character: Margaret Ernst
Mystery: ****
Final Solution: ***
Entertainment: **
9/15

And the winners are ...

So, this is it. I've read all crime novels written by Agatha Christie.

I've looked and relived so many (fictional) lives, met so many (fictional) characters, loved some, hated others, some bored me and some intrigued me ... I've met some that I would really like to meet in person, some that I would most probably fall in love with them, some that I would find terribly annoying and some that I would avoid at any cost.

I've also relived the majority of the twentieth century. Starting in a Downton-Abbeyesque England, witnessed pre-, through-, and after-WWII Europe and finished in the seventies. I've travelled through Middle East and - I've learned a lot of old English nursery rhymes!

As you know, I've rated all the books. The points were given for mystery, solution, and entertainment factor. Especially the last one is not often considered when looking for the best crime novel, but I read books for fun, so fun-factor is important to me. Sorry, hard-core-serious-literature fans.

Oh, one more thing should also be said in advance (before you disagree with my ratings): my itchy feet make me love more the adventurous books and less the static psychological contemplations.

Anyway, the winners are ...

THE BEST BOOK: And Then There Were None. 
Runners-up: Murder of Roger Ackroyd, N or M?, The Seven Dials Mystery

THE BEST MYSTERY:

And Then There Were None,
The ABC Murders,
Murder of Roger Ackroyd,
Why didn't They Ask Evans?,
The Seven Dials Mystery,
N or M?

THE MOST UNPREDICTABLE SOLUTION:
And Then There Were None,
Murder on the Orient Express,
Hercule Poirot's Christmas,
The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side,
The Pale Horse,
The Seven Dials Mystery,
The Mystery of the Blue Train,
Murder of Roger Ackroyd,
The Mysterious Affair at Styles,
Parker Pyne Investigates,
Curtain: Poirot's Last Case.

MOST FUN TO READ:
And Then There Were None,
The Secret Adversary,
N or M?,
The Secret of Chimneys,
A Caribbean Mystery,
Nemesis,
4:50 from Paddington,
The Man in the Brown Suit,
Parker Pyne Investigates,
They Came to Baghdad.

I know that some of you will not agree with me. That Orient Express should be on top of the list. But it's not. Just like Another Brick in the Wall is by far not the best song, just best known.

So, if you only read one Agatha Christie novel, read And Then There Were None, not the Orient Express.

Although I strongly suggest you read them both.

Hell, read them all!

That's it!

I finished reading Agatha Christie's novels!

Well, OK, not really, cause I still have the Mary Westmacott romances and the two autobiographies to read but they don't really count, do they? I will certainly read them in the next months but they won't be judged ...

83. The Mysterious Mr Quin
A quite unusual collection of short stories featuring the mysterious Mr. Harley Quin. He always appears just at the right moments before drama begins and helps solving the problems without actually helping... I quite liked the stories, except the last one. Unfortunately, this was the last Agatha story that I read and it's a shame I didn't like it. Oh, well ...

Memorable quotes:
-"A problem is not necessarily unsolvable because it has remained unsolved."
-"There is no atmosphere in the present."
-"Nobody knows what another person is thinking. They may imagine they do, but they are nearly always wrong."
-"Life is lived very much the same everywhere [...] It wears different clothes - that's all."
-"It makes one feel terribly old to have a grown-up daughter."
-"Daughters have a depressing effect upon one, I find." 
-"He wished the world had not become definitely so noisy." 

Favourite Guest Character: Mr Satterthwaite!
Favourite Stories: The Coming of Mr Quin and The Man from the Sea
Mystery: ***
Final Solution: ***
Entertainment: ****
10/15

A short (statistical) summary on all the books will follow shortly.

Almost there ...

82. HERCULE POIROT'S CHRISTMAS (Poirot)
Usually there's a black sheep in the family but Simeon Lee's family seems to have more black sheep than white ones! A grumpy old man who loves diamonds hopes for some 'fun' when he invites all his children to a Christmas party. With such a melange of characters, something is bound to go wrong. Will the police find the murderer or must Poirot help them identify the killer?

Memorable quotes:
-"If we seek to keep the past alive, we end, I think, by distorting it."
-"All men are wicked. The nuns say so ."
-"I do notice things. It's a habit of mine." 
-"Les femmes, they are never slow to form an opinion, Dieu merci." 

Favourite Guest Character: Pilar
Mystery: ***
Final Solution: *****
Entertainment: **
10/15


81. EVIL UNDER THE SUN (Poirot)
A great story to read in the middle of the summer: the sun, the sea, the holidays, beaches and boats... and a murder. A great classic from Agatha.

Memorable quotes:
-"There is no such thing as a really calm sea. Always, always, there is motion."
-"He was accustomed to think of The Husband in three lights only - as 'the Obstacle', 'the Inconvenience' or 'the Safeguard'."
-"Les Femmes. [...] They are capable of complicating life unbearably."  
-"Women always keep letters and then swear they've burnt them."

Favourite Guest Character: Hm. Emily Brewster
Mystery: ***
Final Solution: ****
Entertainment: ****
11/15


80. THE HOLLOW (Poirot)
What happens if you invite someone, his wife and his mistress to your home? Another mistress bursts through the doors! Not a simple situation and sometimes a little help from your friends is just not enough to fool Poirot.

Memorable quotes:
-"It was nice, she thought, to be a human being again ... and not that other thing."
-"The past  is sometimes a very good place to live."
-"How cynical it is that a wife or a husband is always the first suspect." 
-"To the scientific mind, truth comes first."

Favourite Guest Character: Lucy Angkatell
Mystery: ****
Final Solution: ***
Entertainment: ****
11/15


79. A POCKET FULL OF RYE (Marple)
 A pocket full of rye, four and twenty blackbirds, a peg, yew, cyanide, Percival and Lancelot. And another blackbird.

Memorable quotes:
-"I find one must know how to do everything oneself. Then - one need never do it."
-"You can't change people."
-"People aren't always what they think themselves to be." 

Favourite Guest Character: Hm.
Mystery: ***
Final Solution: ***
Entertainment: *
7/15

Approaching the end ...

78. THE MIRROR CRACK'D FROM SIDE TO SIDE (Marple)
A famous yet miserable actress, a friendly but annoying neighbour, a successful albeit deadly party and ... peace at last.

Memorable quotes:
-"After you've fallen in love with a man and married him and got used to his ways and settled down comfortably - to go and throw it all up and start again! It seems to me madness."
-"... bossy women seldom get themselves murdered. I can't think why not. When you come to think of it, it's rather a pity."
-"Children feel things, you know ... They feel things more than the people around them ever imagine. The sense of hurt, of being rejected, of not belonging." 

Favourite Guest Character: Jason Rudd, probably
Mystery: ***
Final Solution: *****
Entertainment: ***
11/15


77. THE THIRTEEN PROBLEMS (Marple)
Two groups of people challenge each other by telling mysteries - but of course only Miss Marple is able to give the correct answer. Mostly because the people everywhere are very much alike and by knowing the psychology of everyone in St. Mary Mead, she can solve just about any problem. Even the ones that haven't happened yet!

Memorable quotes:
-"... so many people seem to me not to be either bad or good, but simply, you know, very silly."
-"Everybody is very much alike, really. but fortunately, perhaps, they don't realize it."
-"I love stories about sinuous Spanish dancers. It makes me forget how old and fat I am." 
-"This is real life; and real life stops just where it chooses."
-"But there are quite a number of people who aren't stupid, and one shudders to think of what they might accomplish unless they had very strongly rooted principles."

Favourite Guest Character: Jane Helier, the actress
Favourite Stories: The Blue Geranium, The Affair at the Bungalow, The Bloodstained Pavement ...
Mystery: ***
Final Solution: ****
Entertainment: ***
10/15


76. ENDLESS NIGHT
Gypsy's Acre, poor Michael, rich Ellie, love at first sight, an eccentric architect, a wonderful house, murder, murder, murder, murder  ... A very enjoyable novel with a great narration by Michael.

Memorable quotes:
-"Two things run together, side by side. Weakness and strength. The weakness of fading vitality and the strength of frustrated power."
-"If a girl is going to have any sense at all, she'll have it at twenty-one."
-"Mothers are like that. Always inclined to be suspicious of daughters-in-law." 
-"Faces are tricky unless you can connect up when and where you'd seen them."
-"Where large sums of money are concerned it is advisable to trust nobody."

Favourite Guest Character: Michael Rogers
Mystery: ***
Final Solution: ****
Entertainment: ***
10/15

Poirot³

75. THE BIG FOUR (Poirot)
Poirot meets his Moriarty! The ultimate evil impersonated by the Big Four. Clever, rich, and fearless. Much too conspiratory for my liking, too many random deaths and too unspecific for a physicist. Besides, for most of the time we have no idea what Poirot is actually doing or thinking, we just read Hastings' rambling ideas. Oh well ...

Memorable quotes:
-"To commit a murder on a Monday is a mistake."
-"I don't think even a Russian would murder another man in order not to be beaten at chess."
-"Poirot has his virtues, but modesty is not one of them." 
-"Do you not know that all celebrated detectives have brothers who would be even more celebrated than they are were it not for constitutional indolence?"
-"Be prepared."

Favourite Guest Character: Achille Poirot!
Mystery: **
Final Solution: ****
Entertainment: ***
9/15


74. THE LABOURS OF HERCULES (Poirot)
Poirot as Parker Pyne! A great collection of Poirot stories based on the twelve labours of Hercules. It really helps if you're familiar with the Greek legend ... but Christie explains enough of the original stories to understand the similarities and inspiration.

Memorable quotes:
-"These blondes, sir, they're responsible for a lot of trouble."
-"If a man poisons his wife in order to travel to the North Pole or to enjoy the peace of a bachelor existence - it would not interest his fellow-villagers for a minute!"
-"A woman needs a lot of looking after when she's travelling."
-"A man's got a right to a little peace in his own home." 
-"The good God had never intended people to live out of tins."

Favourite Guest Character: Dr. Charles Oldfield from The Lernaean Hydra
Favourite Story: Hmmm... The Cretan Bull, probably
Mystery: ***
Final Solution: ****
Entertainment: ****
11/15


73. POIROT'S EARLY CASES (Poirot)
Another collection of short stories. Poirot finds missing jewels, a missing cook, a missing boy, and missing military plans, solves some murder cases and some mysteries... Not very exciting stories, the TV adaptations were actually better.

Memorable quotes:
-"Most of us are selfish, Mr Radnor. Not all of us admit it so freely."
-"In the autumn of a woman's life, there comes always one mad moment when she longs for romance, for adventure - before it is too late."
-"Wherever there is human nature, there is drama."
-"There are many things not called poison which can kill a man."

Favourite Guest Character: Lady Millicent aka the veiled lady.
Favourite Story: The Submarine Plans
Mystery: ***
Final Solution: ****
Entertainment: **
9/15

More Agatha Christie

72. MURDER IS EASY
An elderly lady gets killed on her way to Scotland Yard where she wanted to report just too many accidental deaths in her village. Luckily she tells Luke about it and he starts investigating the 'accidents'. Turns out that murdering is easy - as long as no one suspects you! Plenty of accidents, plenty of digging up the past and two broken engagements.

Memorable quotes:
-"But lawyers never go to law, do they? They know better."
-"Men have courage - one knows that ... but they are more easily deceived than women."
-"I don't think a museum should deal solely with the past, do you?"

Favourite Guest Character: Luke Fitzwilliam
Mystery: ***
Final Solution: ****
Entertainment: **
9/15


71. ORDEAL BY INNOCENCE
Although insisting on his innocence, Jack is convicted of killing his mother as the key witness never comes forward. Jack dies in prison and surprise, surprise, two years later the key witness appears when he returns from Antarctica! The case is reopened and if Jack is innocent - it only means that someone else must have done it. Everyone in the family suspects everyone else, so  there's a lot of digging up the past, a lot of suspicion, a lot of family issues, mother-child relations and a lot of thinking. And not much else. Guessed the killer way too early to find the book interesting.

Memorable quotes:
-"One must take responsibility for one's actions and not only one's actions but for the result of one's actions."
-"The answers never are what you think they will be."
-"It must be pretty fair hell to be born a woman and to be born plain and unattractive, especially if that isn't compensated for by having any special talent or brain."
-"There is usually something in one's own children, some kink of temperament, some way of feeling that you recognise and can understand without having to put into words."
-"The truth often does sound unconvincing."

Favourite Guest Character: Phillip Durrant.
Mystery: ***
Final Solution: **
Entertainment: **
7/15


70. THE PALE HORSE
Witches and witchcraft! Black magic seems to be behind several persons dying of unrelated diseases, and yet Mark and Ginger cannot quite believe it. The trail leads them to a local pub, The Pale horse, and further to a professional that helps... people die naturally. A somewhat strange novel with an ingenious solution! According to Wikipedia, this book saved several (real) lives!

Memorable quotes:
-"Retire whilst you can still enjoy life."
-"You don't need to kill your victim. All you need do is - tell him to die."
-"But the science of tomorrow is the supernatural of today."
-"I knew what I wanted. Infinite leisure in which to contemplate the beautiful things of this world, natural and artificial."

Favourite Guest Characters: Ginger. And oddly, Mr. Bradley.
Mystery: **
Final Solution: *****
Entertainment: ***
10/15

At home

If you have the impression that I only read Agatha Christie's books, well, you're wrong.

It was brilliant reading At home by Bill Bryson just as I was watching Downton Abbey... it almost felt as the book was written to accompany the series!

Otherwise it's a typical Bryson book: lots of interesting stuff if you find it interesting. Not everything is 100% correct but that doesn't even matter because it is entertaining. Although in principle the book is about our homes and things that go on in specific parts of the house, you know how Bryson's mind works... From Crystal Palace to probability distributions in just a few pages. I learned that Norwegians renamed a lake to export more ice, that Black Adder's episode "Ink and Incapability" is based on a true story, that only aspidistra was immune to ill effects of the gas, who Jethro Tull and Palladio really were, what a ha-ha is etc.

In a book with almost 500 pages, of course plenty of interesting quotes can be found, here are a few:
- "... that's really what history mostly is: masses of people doing ordinary things."
- "We have no idea - or actually, we have lots of ideas, but we don't know if any of them are right."
- "Households had servants the way modern people have appliances."
- "... items of clothing made of different types of fabric - of velvet and lace, say - often had to be carefully taken apart, washed separately, then sewn back together again."
- "The invention of the light bulb was a wondrous thing but of not much practical use when no one had a socket to plug it into."
- "Columbus's real achievement was managing to cross the ocean successfully in both directions."
 -"... university courses in the history of marketing really ought to begin with British opium sales ..."
- "The Eiffel Tower wasn't just the largest thing that anyone had ever proposed to build, it was the largest completely useless thing."
- "... If you wash lousy clothing at low temperatures, all you get is cleaner lice."
- "... that among these new people [Cro-Magnons] was some ingenious soul who came up with one of the greatest, most underrated inventions in history: string."

And since we're talking about home, here's a quick update on our future home :-)

Finally another reading post

69. MISS MARPLE'S FINAL CASES (Marple)
A very enjoyable collection of short stories that includes solving the mysteries of a man dying in a church, a buried treasure, a riding accident ... but also two additional non-Marple poltergeist stories!

Memorable quotes:
-"If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again."
-"There's such a thing as a secret inside a secret."
-"The worst of ill health is ... that one knows what a burden one is to everyone around one."
-"Her love had died and it was I who had killed it..."

Favourite Guest Character: Charmian and Edward from Strange Jest
Favourite Story: Strange Jest
Mystery: ****
Final Solution: ***
Entertainment: ****
11/15


68. THE MYSTERY OF THE BLUE TRAIN (Poirot)
Mimosas! A rich American is travelling on the Blue Train from London to Nice with half-a-million worth of rubies. But before she reaches the Riviera, she is murdered. Surprisingly (or not), her estranged husband and his mistress are also on this train, as is Katherine who unexpectedly inherited a lot of money, and Hercule Poirot. In this story, Poirot is a cat, a dog, a squirrel and a devil. And at the end, he's only Hercule Poirot!

Memorable quotes:
-"Any letters that a lady might write to me I should hold sacred."
-"A woman should be calm and sympathetic, and a good cook."
-"You see, unless you are good at guessing, it is not much use being a detective."
-"... being tied physically gives you lots of scope mentally."

Favourite Guest Character: Katherine, but also Comte de la Roche
Mystery: ****
Final Solution: *****
Entertainment: ***
12/15  


67. BLACK COFFEE (Poirot)
A physicist discovers a powerful (nuclear) explosive and just after he realises that the formula has been stolen, his coffee tastes a bit bitter... Poirot arrives too late but can still solve the mystery in which everyone seems to have something to hide. A family drama with way too much description of static action.

Memorable quotes:
-"... the truth is never horrible, only interesting."
-"Science should be of interest to all of us."
-"One should see the world one lives in."

Favourite Guest Character: probably Sir Claud Amory
Mystery: **
Final Solution: ***
Entertainment: **
7/15

Proud mum!

Life is extremely hectic at the moment - we are renovating the house, I'm writing two (not one, two!) books at a time, MiniMojcek Nr.2 started kindergarden way worse than we expected and MiniMojcek Nr.1 started school. The proper school. While the first two hours were terrible, the rest of the week was superb! He's got the most wonderful teacher and this is what he made on his second day at school: a self-portrait.

The inscription says "That's me" and you can surely recognise the Union Jack on the T-shirt he wore that day. That's my boy!

Reading Agatha Christie

66. POIROT INVESTIGATES (Poirot)
A collection of short stories that show Poirot's "day at the office": he finds a missing husband, a kidnapped prime minister, missing jewellry, a map, naval plans and bonds. But he also helps a thief and describes the only time he failed identifying the murderer.

Memorable quotes:
-"You must not underrate the force of superstition."
-"One must seek the truth within - not without."
-"To work against the law, it would be pleasing, for a change."
-"There are many things not called poison which can kill a man."

Favourite Guest Character: Violet Marsh from the Missing Will
Favourite Stories: The Case of the Missing Will, The Chocolate Box
Mystery: ***
Final Solution: ****
Entertainment: ****
11/15


65. THIRD GIRL (Poirot)
A girl - a third girl - thinks she might have committed a murder. Now Poirot has to solve it - time, place and victim unknown ... A story full of rather unrealistic coincidences, in which Ariadne is knocked unconscious and Poirot learns that he is too old. 

Memorable quotes:
-"... people are never like what you remember them. You make them, as the years go by, more and more the way you wish them to be, and as you think you remember them."
-"Mind you, boys can cause you trouble, too. But girls is more worrying, I think."
-"I might go up in the Whispering Gallery and whisper."

Favourite Guest Character: Dr. Stillingfleet
Mystery: ***
Final Solution: **
Entertainment: **
7/15


64. SPARKLING CYANIDE
Exactly one year after Rosemary dies during a dinner in hotel Luxembourg, the same group gathers at the same table. And again, one of them dies. But did the killer get the right person? The solution can be predicted by anyone who understands group theory and symmetry breaking :-)

Memorable quotes:
-"Frightening, really, how little you might know of a person after living in the same house with them!"
-"She couldn't even listen intelligently."
-"He'd never been able to suffer fools gladly - not even fools with pretty faces."
-"These women who have children when they're over forty never seem to learn any sense."

Favourite Guest Character: Anthony Browne
Mystery: ***
Final Solution: ****
Entertainment: ****
11/15