A few months ago, I signed up for a crazy ambitious challenge that a bunch of bloggers organized called Classics Retold. The aim of the event? For bloggers to select a classic work and then evaluate the retellings, sequels, and adaptations of it. Since the scope of source material is so vast, there are several organizers, each in charge of a different section of source material. Here they are:

• Alyssa @ Books Take You Places is in charge of Ancient to Renaissance Lit Classics. Sign up post
• Brittany @ Book Addict’s Guide is in charge of Mythology Classics. Sign up post
• Charlene @ Bookish Whimsy is in charge of 19th Century and Gothic Classics. Sign up post
• Alison @ The Cheap Reader is in charge of Children’s Classics. Sign up post
• Wendy @ Excellent Library is in charge of American & Misc. Classics. Sign up post

I thought for a while about what book I would like to tackle but finally decided on Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. How many adaptations could there be, right? BAHAHAHA, WRONG. There are so, so many. Today, since it is already halfway through September, I just wanted to finally put a post up acknowledging that I am working on this project--though it will probably take me further into October--and to start talking a bit about what's out there in terms of retellings. Let's look at the movie and television adaptations...

I'm very excited to tell you that, DRUMROLL PLEASE, there is a Lifetime movie about the March sisters and it only came out last year! The March Sisters at Christmas (2012) centers on the four sisters in modern times trying to keep hold of their family's dilapidated estate. It doesn't sound from the blurb on IMDB like it will be anything other than a very loose adaptation but it does have something that I love watching movies about: home renovations. I spent a few bucks and bought this version on iTunes so it will be the second retelling I'll tackle.  Have I mentioned I'm far more excited to watch retellings than read them? I don't have a lot of free time these days and he time investment is much lower with movies. I can just lay around on the couch like a slug instead of doing all that hard work of turning pages or hitting 'next page' on my Kindle.

There are a few more versions that I don't think I'll be able to find access to, especially not in the next month. These include the 1918 version and the 1970 TV miniseries. Sigh, there just is never enough time.

Once again, I find myself unable and unwilling to read full-length novels. Sometimes, it is much easier for me to process book after book, upping my Goodreads challenge numbers and patting myself on the back as I put each one in my “read and to return to the library” pile. As such, I read six books in two days last week and altogether they probably equal out to be the length of one regular book.  I wandered through the shelves of two branches of my library system and only picked out books that looked like they were children’s books hidden amongst the proper adult books. Books that could possibly be short stories published on their own. Plays. Picture books. It surprised me how many classics are extremely short and I aim to keep going on my short book quest for another week or two…but who knows how that will go, considering I haven’t been very good at sticking to any of my readerly promises of late. 

I think that’s just it: to show the effort of purchasing someone a gift book like the ones I am speaking of is to show no effort at all—pick one heartfelt recommendation, not 45 meaningless ones. Or pick a short story that packs a huge punch like, say, The Yellow Wallpaper (or many other shorts by masters like Graham Greene, Ray Bradbury, and newer yet similarly amazing people like Ken Liu) To that end, I enjoyed the idea behind Petrie’s book: she wrote it as a story of empowerment to a friend of hers who was, I hope, only vaguely if at all as vapid as the protagonist of this story. The princess in this fairy tale is entitled and frivolous. She bemoans her singleton lifestyle and her lack of suitors and treats her fairy godmother with the kindness of a rattlesnake that hasn’t eaten for months. I had no sympathy for the princess for much of the story, and even at the end, I’d probably rather eat my own hand than be friends with this woman, despite her epiphany that self-reliance and confidence are more important than finding someone to sweep you off your feet. If you want a single woman to feel empowered, give her role models of strong women, give her stories of women who became confident through hard work and who learned lessons that made them better people. Don’t give them 35-page stories about people who sound like characters on Real Housewives of (Some City) and that are so weighted down in adjectives that the book feels like an anvil to the face. Because the princess is meant to be a touchstone for every whiny, single woman, the author thinks up a few other ways to describe the woman instead of giving her a name. Here are some examples: 

“The pampered imperial”
“The anxious aristocrat”
“The frantic girl”
“The ingénue”
“The novice regal”
“The fledgling monarch”
“The fair-haired regal”
“The lovely young lady”
“The fair maiden”
“Our redolent regal”
“The lanky lass”
“The pensive imperial”
“The spirited scion”
“The novice royal”

And let’s not forget the fairy godmother, or should I say:

“The pastel pixie” 
“The magical visitor”
“The rosy winged woman”
 “The glowing guest”
“The bedazzled tutor”
 “The zealous zenith”
 “The luminous visitor”
“Her bubbly benefactor”
“The sweet-faced winged woman”
“Her charmed advisor”
 “Her mini-mentor”
 “Our effervescent sidekick”
 “The powerful pixie”
“The stewardly sprite”

For all the great intentions behind this book, I would not give it to any reader I know—there is no finesse to the writing and it read like a fairy tale someone might make up on the spot before putting the kids to bed. Or in this case, an attempt in telling your friend that she’s miserable and needs to believe in herself as a strong, independent woman instead of waiting for her Prince Charming. 

My adventures in short books are not even close to complete. Since beginning this draft, I've finished about 4 or 5 more so I'll wrap those up soon. 

For anyone skipping the text or wondering about how I ended up rating these books, here's the rundown:
The Yellow Wallpaper: 5/5
The Enchanted Truth: 1-2/5 (though I can see why some people would love it)
The Willowdale Handcar: 4/5
The Soul Bird: 3/5
Twelve Angry Men: 5/5
And Everything Nice: 3/5

Hopefully we'll be back to posting more regularly soon. And be sure to let me know if you have any recommendations for short books in the comments. (preferably adult, to satisfy my tastes of late)

Today, we're happy to welcome our friend Keertana, who blogs at Ivy Book Bindings to The Readventurer to talk about her favorite book, Margaret Mitchell's classic, Gone with the Wind.  She intended to write about unlikable heroines but, as is often the way with blog posts and any writing, her journey led her to quite another destination.  

If someone ever asked me to write a book about making friends, I’d have exactly one piece of advice for them – ask them what their favorite book is. It’s one of the first things I ask people, mostly because I’m curious to see how long it takes them to respond and partly because I’m also interested in the answer. For me, answering the question “What’s your favorite book?” is one of the hardest questions in the world. It’s not that my favorite book changes depending on my mood or time or even what I’m reading at that moment, it’s simply that so many books have affected me and shaped me and made me into the person that I am that really, I can’t just pick one book. Needless to say, it takes everyone awhile to figure out what their favorite book is, but when I first heard the title Gone With the Wind, that wasn’t the case.

Gone With the Wind entered my life in a very…curious manner. It’s safe to say that most Americans have heard of Gone With the Wind at some point in their life before high school, but being an immigrant, I was rather ignorant of the fact that this novel was, in fact, a Great American Classic. Thus, when I heard the name in my Freshman Biology Honors class, it didn’t strike a bell. What struck me about Gone With the Wind the first time I heard it was that the girl who mentioned it, a college student who had come to visit my teacher on Fall Break, was studying English Literature and when my teacher asked her what her favorite book was, she replied, with the utmost conviction, sincerity, and ardor, without even a second of hesitation, as if she couldn’t say it fast enough, “Gone With the Wind.” 

I started Gone With the Wind that very same night. I found a battered copy of it that my father had brought with him from India in the depths of an old box in my attic and that copy – the same copy my father, his younger sister, and two younger brothers all read – is now mine. It took me two weeks to read the novel. Now, Gone With the Wind is a big book, but being a voracious reader, I was still shocked by how long it took me to finish the novel. It wasn’t the pacing or any literary qualms that rendered me unable to zip through it like I do most novels, I simply didn’t want to. I savored the rich descriptions of America during the Civil War Period; I re-read every romantic declaration made by Rhett; I chuckled to myself every time Scarlett made a sassy remark; I pulled my hair out with every mention of Ashley Wilkes and finally, at the end of that two weeks, I re-read that last chapter three times, unable to believe I had read it correctly the first, or even the second, time, and cried myself to sleep.

Gone With the Wind is, now that I think about it, the only book to stay with me for such a long period of time. Its ending continued to haunt for me the next month until finally, after reading every single Gone With the Wind fanfiction (all disappointing by the way), fan site, forum, and watching the movie almost at once (brilliant, in case you were wondering), I came to the realization that the ending was perfect. Of course, by then I’d already ordered a copy of Alexandra Ripley’s Scarlett from my local library, but I will cease to go into the details of that astonishingly disappointing, unrealistic, and dramatic ending of Gone With the Wind.  Instead, it is important to know that more than anything else Gone With the Wind may have done, it changed me.

I’ll be the first to admit that as a novel, Gone With the Wind has its faults. Its views of slavery, plantation owners, and southern lifestyle aren’t accurate in the least and even, in some parts, Rhett and Scarlett’s relationship is far from the romance it’s known to be. All this was carried over to the movie as well and it pains me to say that the movie is far more renowned than the book itself. While Gone With the Wind is, by no means, a bad book-to-movie-adaptation (it’s one of the best I’ve seen actually), it gives one the impression that Gone With the Wind is a romance. Well, I’ll tell you right now: Gone With the Wind isn’t a romance. While it features one of the most heart-breaking and beautiful love stories of the age, the novel, in its entirety, is not a romance. If anything, Gone With the Wind is, like Margaret Mitchell herself said, a novel about survival.

In many ways, I think the best way to describe Gone With the Wind would be to say that it’s a biography of the life of Scarlett O’Hara. Scarlett is the heart, body, and soul of Gone With the Wind and is it because of her that the novel has made its way into my heart. In my eyes, Scarlett O’Hara is what every fictional character ought to be. I’m not denying that Scarlett is a manipulative, conniving, jealous, backstabbing woman – because she is – but I love her despite that.

Truth be told, if I were ever to meet Scarlett O’Hara in real life, I’d probably hate her. Yet, immortalized within the pages of a book, Scarlett is a heroine who grabs you and simply won’t let go. I admire her. Although she is chock-full of flaws – more than most people I’d say – I look up to her and celebrate her for her strength.

I suppose that now is as good time as any to admit that Gone With the Wind is the book I think about when I am at the lowest points in my life. When I feel as if the burden of life is crushing me down, when I feel the pain of my family members at its most acute, or when I am simply disgusted with myself, I think back to Scarlett O’Hara, for truly, she is synonymous with Gone With the Wind itself. 

Although the 1860s Civil War society in which she lived in demanded her to live her life a certain way, she lived life the way she wanted to; she broke all the rules. While the men at parties would view Scarlett as nothing but a trophy to take to their beds, Scarlett outsmarted them and played with their emotions. When, Tara, her beloved plantation, fell to ruin, she accepted the fact that she may have to prostitute herself to Rhett Butler in order to save her father’s land. When the worst parts of her nature destroyed her chance to be with her one true love, Scarlett resolved to snare him back, one way or the other.

 Scarlett, for all her flaws, embodies us, humans, in our most real, visceral, and worst forms – but how many of us can claim not to be just like Scarlett on some days? Who can’t relate to her? Truly, how many of us have stood in Scarlett’s shoes, watching someone walk away from us and wondering what we could have done differently to make them stay? Who hasn’t lost love or friendship for the sake of pride? Who wouldn’t do anything in their capacity to keep their family safe, even if it meant debasing their own selves? Which one of us can claim to really not have any regrets at all?

Gone With the Wind is one of those novels for which there is no “right time” to read. At every cornerstone and step of your life, Gone With the Wind is prevalent. Scarlett’s journey is one of endurance as she braves her multiple loveless marriages, the stigma against working women, the heartache of not being able to be with the man she loves, and the stupidity of not realizing what she already has before her. Her journey is one that is difficult to read at times; it is one of desperation and degradation, but it is also one of fierce determination and strength.

At the end of the novel, when Scarlett falls upon the stairs, tears streaming down her face as she watches Rhett walk out of her life because of her own stupidity and continued mistakes – Rhett, the one man who saw her for all her flaws and still saw someone to love beneath that all – we know that she’s going to get right back up the next day, redouble her efforts to win back Rhett, and succeed. That, I feel, is why I love Scarlett, and in turn Gone With the Wind, as much as I do. For a novel about survival, Scarlett is the ultimate survivor; she thrashes against fate to stay alive and never lets anything – any hassle, any obstacle, or any hurdle – get in her way. 

As a teenager, first reading Gone With the Wind, it blew me away. Its length, its description…Rhett. I’ve avoided talking about him as much as I can since I’ll very plausibly just swoon and leave this unfinished since I faint over his Southern charm, brutal honesty, and downright roguishness time and time again. Rhett and Scarlett aren’t perfect people, and neither are they much of a perfect couple with their strained marriage and not-so-exemplary parenting skills, but they’re perfect for each other in a way that no two other people ever will be. Yet, what makes their love story so perfect in my eyes is all the imperfections within it; all the blunders, the boulders, the mountains standing in their way – and still standing there by the end of the novel. For me, at least, one of the more lasting impacts that Gone With the Wind had, beyond Scarlett’s impressionable character, was the utter realities the novel exposed about life and how, despite all those harsh truths, it was still a beauty to behold. 

I originally set out to write this about unlikeable heroines in literature – because I always wind up loving them – but instead this seems to have turned into a long rant about my love for Gone With the Wind. Whether you like Gone With the Wind or not, whether you’ve read the novel or haven’t even heard of it before, you have to admit that it’s an unforgettable tale. If nothing else, Gone With the Wind will stick with you and it will make some kind of impression on you, good or bad. And isn’t that the best we can ask from literature? For it to change us in the best possible way and teach us to look upon life in a different light? Either way, Gone With the Wind fulfills its duty, as a novel, as a movie, and as a piece that will linger in your thoughts hauntingly for days, months, and years to come.  

If you're interested in hearing more of what Keertana has to say about books (as you should be), don't forget to visit her blog at Ivy Book Bindings. You can also find her at Goodreads and on Twitter. Thanks again for visiting, Keertana!

Yesterday we were delighted to have Andrea K. Höst here for our Year of the Classics feature to speak a little bit about Classic Mysteries, and more specifically, the works of the very prolific mystery author Agatha Christie.  Today she's back for part two of her post, where she looks outside of Ms. Christie's overflowing shelves.  Take it away, Andrea!

Welcome to part 2 of the Classic Mystery Primer, where we look at some authors who aren't Agatha Christie. 

Dorothy L. Sayers

Sayers published over a dozen mystery novels and short story collections featuring Wimsey.  In the mystery genre, these edge toward the literary, exploring Wimsey's complex development toward a whole being while unravelling knotty problems and on occasion agonising over the consequences of catching a killer.  Wimsey's personality is a big draw in these books, as is his complicated romance with Harriet Vane, a mystery author.

Criticism of Sayers sometimes claims that she committed the crime of falling in love with her detective, and that the later books suffer because of this.  Certainly she cheerfully quotes everything under the sun and expects her readers to get the references, and there is an excessive amount of singing in French in the 'marriage volume', Busman's Honeymoon, but on the whole these are all intriguing mystery novels with strong characters.

Who is the detective?:  Lord Peter Wimsey, the second child of an English Duke, combines strong intellect and athletic ability with a vaguely foolish appearance which he uses to his advantage.  Service as both a line officer and an intelligence operative during World War I left him shell-shocked and traumatised by the death of men under his command.  With his former sergeant and now impeccable valet (and supportive friend), Mervyn Bunter, he balances fragile nerves with an interest in solving mysteries.

Where it starts: The first Wimsey is Whose Body?, the story of a body in a bath.

Highlight: Murder Must Advertise sees Wimsey under cover in an advertising agency.  
  

Ngaio Marsh

Ngaio (pronounced Nye-oh) Marsh, a native of New Zealand, was a painter, and also deeply involved in theatre, and all three of these elements appear repeatedly in her 32 detective novels.  They're also notable for deaths which make you wince and shudder, as the victims perish variously from drinking acid, a shot of insect spray, falling in boiling mud, and grotesquely being stabbed in the eye with a skewer.

Marsh is by far my favourite classic crime writer.  Alleyn is a highly sympathetic detective, his eventual marriage to Agatha Troy is a beautifully drawn romance, the crimes are knotty and original, and the victims and suspects vividly drawn.  Marsh had a gift for portraying the awkwardness and secret shame of family business people don't want to share, the petty feuds of life, and also the grand passions.  The books involving the theatre are interesting both on a mystery level and as a glimpse behind the curtain - particularly if you also have an interest in Shakespeare.

Who is the detective?: Roderick Alleyn, a detective at Scotland Yard.  Known variously as the gentleman detective and "Handsome Alleyn" by the press, he is a reserved, charming, and almost ascetic man.  While he is the second son of a baronet, he chose to work his way up through the police force from constable, and is extremely well-regarded by his colleagues both for his ability and his unswerving courtesy.

Where it starts: The first novel is A Man Lay Dead, revolving around a detective game played at a country house.  This first book focuses more on a gossip reporter, Nigel Bathgate, and the second novel, Enter a Murderer, is stronger.

Highlights: These books are frequent re-reads for me, but the two which stand out most both involve 'little New Zealanders' who go to England and get caught up in murder.

First, A Surfeit of Lampreys (US title: Death of a Peer): The Lampreys are spendthrift aristocrats, always going from boom to bust, staying out of debtor's prison through a combination of luck and charm.  They are very funny, and very sweet, and you want to hit them at times for their madness and lack of sense.  They do not handle murder well.

Next, Opening Night (US title Night at the Vulcan), where a young would-be actress down to her last few pennies in London and becomes tangled with the murder backstage during the opening night of a new play.  Also highly recommended is Artists in Crime, since this is the introduction of Troy.

Margery Allingham

Allingham's early mysteries run more to high adventure than intricate puzzles, with plenty of disguises, master criminals and gun fights.  These later mature into more sleuth-like affairs, along with the notable The Tiger in the Smoke, which is more a character study of a killer than it is a traditional detective novel.

Who is the detective?: Campion is an outright parody of Lord Peter Wimsey – another son of a Duke hiding a sharp brain behind a vacuous expression.  Campion, however, turns fatuity up to 11 – at least for the early books – though this is toned down in later books to mere deceptive blankness.  Where Wimsey had the impeccable Bunter, Campion has Magersfontein Lugg, an enormous, lugubrious former cat burglar, grown too large for his profession.  Campion and Lugg form a rudely affectionate odd couple double act.

Eight of the Campion books were adapted as a TV series in the late 80's, starring Peter Davison as Campion, and there is a certain madcap skin-of-his-teeth air to Campion's early adventures which would fit well as an incarnation of the Doctor.

Where it starts: The first book is The Crime at Black Dudley (where Campion is not the focus of the story, but part of it) – a moderately silly adventure/thriller.  If your tastes don't run to international master criminals, try Police at the Funeral.

Highlight: Sweet Danger, although more an adventure novel than a mystery, introduces Amanda Fitton, who goes on to be an aircraft engineer and figure an important part of Campion's life.   

Josephine Tey

Tey's eight mysteries run the gamut from thoughtful police procedurals to hilarious and picture-perfect-painful schoolgirl portraits (evidently drawn from her time as a phys ed teacher).

Who is the detective?: Alan Grant, a Scotland Yard inspector with an interest in theatre and fishing.  Grant's is a quiet intelligence – he's not a creature full of idiosyncrasies, flashy patter or wise homilies – and solves his mysteries through methodical police work and dogged logic.

Where it starts: The Man in the Queue, where a stabbing is unseen by a crowd of hundreds.

Highlights: The Daughter of Time is by far Tey's most famous work, and more than likely one of the most off-putting for the casual browser.  A police detective, confined to a hospital bed, starts researching Richard III and the murder of the two princes in the tower to give himself something to do.  The book starts with a paragraph entirely devoted to the study of the ceiling in his hospital room, and a writer would be hard-put to begin a book less propitiously and yet The Daughter of Time is compelling and brilliant.  It is a study not merely of Richard III, but of the way history is formed, accepted, and becomes true.

Another highlight is Miss Pym Disposes, which is not a Grant novel, but set in the same world.  Miss Pym is a delightful creature, an 'accidental' lecturing psychologist who is drawn into a world of schoolgirls and then a murder.  There is a brilliant morning scene in this book, where Miss Pym is an unseen listener as the girls are shouting to each other as they get ready in the morning, which is sheer brilliance of characterisation. 

Georgette Heyer

Heyer is, of course, famous for her Regency romances, but also produced twelve mystery novels set contemporary to the time of writing, for a period putting out one Regency and one mystery each year.  The Regencies sold approximately ten times as many copies as the mysteries, but the mysteries retain many of Heyer's strengths – characterisation, conversation, convincing romances – if also some of Heyer's issues – it's so rare to encounter interesting, intelligent non-aristocrats in Heyer's books, and her Jewish characters are painful stereotypes.

Who are the detectives?: Along with several stand-alone mysteries, Heyer's primary series features Superintendent Hannasyde and Sergeant Hemingway of Scotland Yard make an amiable pair.  Hannasyde the steady-headed senior, and Hemingway the young up-and-comer, are vehicles of investigation – we get to know them a little over the series of books, but the primary focus is definitely on the murder suspects of each title.

Where it starts: Footsteps in the Dark is the first of Heyer's mysteries (and is almost a gothic, with ghostly monks being a large plot point of the story), while Death in the Stocks is the first to feature Hannasyde and Hemingway.

Highlights: My stand-out favourite of this series is A Blunt Instrument which (as Heyer sometimes did with her Regencies) takes a handful of stock stereotypes of the genre and promptly stands them on their heads.  It has some large weaknesses, but they are entirely made up for by Neville, who is hilarious.  It also has, hands down, one of the best proposals of any book I've ever read.  Another favourite is Behold, Here's Poison, which features the acid-tongued Randall.

Rex Stout

If, by now, you've had it up to your ears with English country mysteries, take a hop across the Atlantic to New York and the near-noir of Rex Stout.

Who are the detectives?: Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin are two halves of a working whole.  Wolfe: corpulent, lazy, a laser-sharp brain wallowing in self-indulgence.  Goodwin: young, snappy, man-about-town who admires Wolfe just as much as he sasses him.  Wolfe cannot function without Archie, and Archie acknowledges the sheer fun – along with frustration – he gets out of working for Wolfe.  Particularly tweaking the nose of the police and then dancing rings around them.  And, most entertaining spectacle of all, Wolfe obliged to leave his comfortable brownstone and venture out in one of those dangerous and perilous conveyances, the automobile.

These are books full of snappy patter, twists, and personality.  Wolfe is a monster of ego, spendthrift gourmand, orchid obsessive, unbelievably selfish, sexist eight times out of ten, and yet remarkably admirable.  He is not only intelligent, he has his moral code and he sticks to it rigidly.  Archie is the charmer, a ladies' man (with a dose of his own sexism), whose conversation sparks and zings, quick to react and on-the-go.  

Stout's work is a good example of stories where the characters have faults – such as Wolfe's hatred of women – but the text does not support his prejudices.  The occasional foolish female might stumble into view, but she's outnumbered by strong-minded, independent, more appealing fellows.  Characters such as PI Dol Bonner and the inimitable Lily Rowan both earn Wolfe's grudging respect through the course of the novels.

Where they start: The first Wolfe book is Fer-de-Lance, though since Stout effectively 'froze his characters in time', there are few books you could not pick up and have a typical Wolfe experience.

"You're a practical woman, Maria Maffei.  Moreover, possibly, a woman of honor.  You are right, there is something in me that can help you; it is genius; but you have not furnished the stimulant to arouse it…" ---Fer-de-lance

Highlight: Some Buried Caesar is the introduction of Lily Rowan and full of all the potential absurdity born of Wolfe not only pried out of his house, but most uncomfortably escaping from potentially-murderous bulls. 

These are only six of the many contemporaries of Christie, some of the most enduring of her genre.  One of the reasons I like reading these stories so much is that each holds not only a carefully constructed mystery to unravel, but is its own little TARDIS, taking me back to the attitudes, the concerns, the clothes and manners of a foreign past.

Usually I end up glad not to live there, but they're a fascinating place to visit. 

Many thanks to Andrea K.  Höst for obviously putting quite a lot of thought and effort into these posts!  I'm excited to try out some of these series.  Mysteries can feel formulaic to me after a while, but I have a feeling that some of these classics would rekindle my interest.  What do you guys think?  Do you have any beloved classic mysteries that you'd like to share with us?


Please look out for Andrea K. Höst and her books around the web - she can be found at her blog and on twitter and goodreads.

Every author should be a reader. I (Flannery) recently went to an author event during which an author admitted that she was never really a reader. (Name withheld to protect the hopefully embarrassed) I now know that I will probably never read that author's books -- perhaps that's a bit harsh, but it is also a reality. Quite the opposite is true of my interactions with Andrea K Höst. I've been friends with Höst on Goodreads for over a year. She engages on the site primarily as a reader and I've come to really enjoy her taste in books and her recommendations. Her personality and conversation, as well as a 5-star review from a friend of mine, made me very curious about her work and I really enjoyed the first one I read, Stray which is the first in a sci-fi series.  She writes mostly fantasy and science fiction stories but her upcoming release, entitled And All the Stars, will be her first foray into the post-apoc genre and I am so excited to see where the story goes. I loved a recommendations post  Höst published on her blog, Autumn Write, so I asked whether she'd write something for The Readventurer. Today and tomorrow, Andrea will be here talking about her knowledge of mysteries for our Year of the Classics feature. Today, she'll do an overview of Agatha Christie's work and tomorrow, on to some other recommended mystery books!

Where do you start with classic Whodunnits? You've been pointed at Agatha Christie, picked up a title at random, liked it, and want more. This brief (*cough*) primer may give you some ideas on where to head next.

First stop, more Agatha Christie!

Christie published over 70 detective novels and short story collections (along with a few plays). My personal preference with Golden Age mysteries is to start at the beginning and read chronologically, but with 70 novels you might want to pick and choose. Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot are the best known of her detectives, but she used at least half a dozen others who might pique a new reader's interest.

Poirot: Symmetry and Logic

Who is the detective?:  Poirot was Christie's first detective, and there's a clear comparison between the stories of the little Belgian and his literary predecessor Sherlock Holmes. Although Poirot disdains some of Holmes' evidence-gathering methods (throwing oneself about on the ground in search of cigarette ash is most definitely not Poirot's style), many familiar notes will sound as Poirot's keen observation and logical deduction sees him untangle what to his Watson-equivalent, the good-hearted but mildly comedic Hastings, is a Gordian Knot of mystery.

And just like Conan Doyle, Christie had soon had it up to her eye teeth with her most famous creation, describing him as a "detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep". Christie's later Poirot novels often shift the focus away from him to secondary characters. Despite the author's growing dislike for him, she maintains his character, his unflagging sense of justice. I've always found Poirot, with his love of symmetry and his painfully tight patent leather shoes, to be rather endearing.

Where to start: With Christie's very first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which is a classic English country murder. Another option is The Labours of Hercules, a collection of short stories in which Poirot is challenging himself with particular cases before retirement.

What to skip: A very influential novel, but I'm not a fan of this sort of twist ending: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Miss Marple: Fluffy But Deadly

Who is the detective?: Miss Jane Marple, an elderly resident of St Mary's Mead, devoted to her garden, and the observation of human nature. Christie created Miss Marple because, during a stage adaptation of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the narrator's spinster sister was replaced by a young girl character, and so Miss Marple became a deliberate attempt to give a voice to one of the least-heard members of society: elderly women.

If ever there was a mystery series dying to be written, it's Jane Marple's early life. Along with possessing keen intelligence, young Jane attended art courses which apparently involved the study of human cadavers, and she (claims to have) won awards for marksmanship, fencing and equestrianism. Where are the Steampunk Jane Marple novels?

In the early Marple books, Miss Marple is considered nosy and is disliked, but in later volumes evolves into a respected (and feared) community member. Her time in the small village of St Mary's Mead has given her ample opportunity to study a microcosm of human life, with all its sins and foibles, and for a sweet and fluffy looking creature she has an absolutely cynical view of the worst aspects of human nature. Miss Marple books often are resolved using a parallel village incident. Miss Marple has seen it all before.

Where to start: The first Marple novel is Murder at the Vicarage and is a solid  'everyone has a motive' story. Another good starting place is The Thirteen Problems, a collection of short stories, or the wonderful juxtaposition of fluffy spinster and jaded millionaire in A Caribbean Mystery.

What to skip: The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side. One of my main reasons for disliking a book is if it leaves me depressed, and this is definitely one of those.

Tommy and Tuppence: Time Goes By Adventurers

Who is the detective?: Tommy and Tuppence start out as Bright Young Things who, out of work in post-WWI London, decide to hire themselves out as young adventurers, and get themselves mixed up in blackmail, plots and spy games. The stories are firmly in the thriller category, not mystery, and follow the pair through the next war and beyond. 

Where to start: The first in this series of four novels and one short story collection is The Secret Adversary.

What to skip: The T&T books are a very distinct set of books. If you liked T&T in the first book, and enjoy the idea of watching two characters mature and change over time, then read on in order. The later books especially are not Christie's strongest, but you do have to give Tuppence points for refusing to be left out when the War Office is only interested in recruiting her husband.

Ariadne Oliver: The Author as Character

Who is the detective?: Ariadne Oliver appears periodically in the Poirot mysteries, with one or two later outings of her own. This is Christie going meta – disorganised, apple-loving mystery writer Ariadne Oliver is a clear parody of herself, down to loathing her idiosyncratic detective and wishing she dared kill him off. Oliver makes a much better foil for Poirot than Hastings, and is so often the viewpoint character that her books can be considered a distinct sub-category.

Where to start: Ariadne Oliver first appears in a short story (to be found in the collection Parker Pyne Investigates). Her full introduction is in Cards on the Table, a mystery involving around a collection of detecting experts and a collection of suspects. My favourite of her appearances is probably in Dead Man's Folly, where she is a guest at a garden party, and has been asked to write the clues in a scavenger hunt.

What to skip: The Pale Horse, which focuses primarily on a one-off character, Mark
Easterbrook, and involves witches. 

Notable Shorts

For something different, try a couple of the short story collections: 

The Mysterious Mr Quin (and two later stories): A mysterious figure who intrigues and impresses social doyen Mr Satterthwaite. These stories combine touches of the supernatural (Quin) and often issues of romance. Rather fun.

Parker Pyne Investigates: Pyne considers himself a 'detective of the heart', and features in a series of mystery short stories which bring about romantic resolutions.

Really Thrillers

Although best known for her classic mysteries, Christie also turned out quite a few books which would be better classed as thrillers, over-flowing with espionage, master criminals, secret societies and, well, unlikely and overblown plots. Some notable books:

And Then There Were None: Racist poetry and all. It would only take a touch of supernatural to turn this particular book into a forerunner for Halloween and Friday the 13th, as ten people trapped on an island are picked off one by one. 

Death Comes as the End: Completely different to any other Christie, this novel is set in Ancient Egypt, about a family dealing with the introduction of a new concubine. It's based on translations of real letters of a man to his family, and while I don't often re-read this, I'm always fascinated when I do. It actually reminds me a little of Andre Norton!

The Man in the Brown Suit: Take one young orphan, longing for adventure. Add an accidental death, a strangled young woman and a mysterious man in a brown suit and you end up in a spanking and romantic tale that ends on an island in Africa. One of my favourites of Christie's adventure tales.


So, we've scratched the surface. Part 2 of the Primer will cover some of the classic detectives not written by Agatha Christie!    

True confession: Sometimes Andrea makes me feel like I am not well-read at all. She seems to have read everything, especially in the fantasy, mystery, and sci-fi genres. Congratulations on being a badass, Andrea.  Join her here tomorrow for non-Christie mysteries!

Have you read any Christie? Do you agree/disagree with any of her assessments? 

Today we are very excited to welcome Heidi from Bunbury in the Stacks, for another edition in our running series The Year of the Classics.  Along with very well-written reviews, features, and posts about amazing t.v. shows that actually make me want to put down the book I'm reading for a minute, her blog has one of my favorite titles.  Largely because it just makes me want to re-read all of my favorite parts of The Importance of Being Earnest.  From Heidi’s blog:

What is Bunburying?
Bunburying noun (uncountable)
1. (humorous) Avoiding one’s duties and responsibilities by claiming to have appointments to see a fictitious person.

In the play, Bunbury is a fictional and continuously ailing relative of the main character, who he uses as an excuse to get away from his structured life in the country.  And now just for Heidi, one of my favorite quotes from The Importance of Being Earnest:

“I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever.”  

And now that I've gone completely off track, I'd like to hand over the reins to Heidi - here to educate us all about how to live a Pioneer lifestyle!

When I think of the term ‘classic’ I think of books that not only I loved, but also my sisters, my mom, my grandmother—everyone for generations! So with that in mind, deciding that I’d like to talk about Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder was pretty much a no brainer.

I may not be a child of the prairie, but my parents were. They both grew up on farms in the Dakotas, very near places Laura spent time in her life. In fact, my dad’s small town in South Dakota was so close to De Smet, where the Wilders eventually settled, that they were high school rivals! To this day, it is not uncommon to walk in on my mom watching reruns of Little House on the Prairie in the afternoon on Hallmark (it’s on right before M*A*S*H* after all).

To say that I was enraptured by the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder as a child would be putting it mildly. I was obsessed. I didn’t play house. I played Little House. In the woods behind the family cabin you can still see two makeshift structures that were created by me as a young girl. One was a teepee, the other was my ‘Pioneer Place’. Pioneer Place was about the shoddiest moss covered, bug ridden stick fort you could ever find, but it was mine, and I loved it. One of my favorite places to spend time was at the local museum, which featured a one bedroom house similar to those the Ingalls lived in, as well as a dugout structure more like their home in On the Banks of Plum Creek. There I was able to mill corn, try on aprons and bonnets, and have my dreams rub up next to my reality. I grew up to work in that museum, and still visit whenever I am in town.

I may be a child of the mountains, but I spent a good amount of time living out my fantasies of Laura’s life when visiting the farm, cabin, or my own backyard. Turns out, you can still live a bit of the pioneer life as an adult!  Here’s how:

Be prepared to leave the cabin in the woods:   

My family’s cabin in Spearfish Canyon, South Dakota. Love it 
here, but a few too many trees for homesteading.




Get yourself a trusty companion:  

Laura had Jack, I have Sadie, squirrel treeing extraordinaire.  Sure to scare off the fiercest of predators.  Or point them out to you at least.




Enlist the services of a pair of ‘mustangs’: 

You’ll need them on the road to pull your wagon, and on the farm to pull your plow! While my family does, in fact, have a pair of mustangs, the donkeys are much more friendly and cooperative with the camera.  Also they’re much more likely to carry stuff for you, and we’ve used them on backpacking and hunting trips.  The mustangs tend to just roll around or brush things off on trees.


Get comfy in temporary shelter: 

Pioneering means a lot of nights in the back of the wagon, or out under the night sky.  While I did the ‘night sky’ thing a lot in my youth, I’ve become a tent girl myself.  My tent (the green one) is so swanky it has a hinged door.  Eat your heart out pioneers.


Get used to seeing buffalo:

I realize herds of buffalo don’t roam the plains quite like they used to, but they’re still around on ranches throughout the plains region, and wild in and around Yellowstone in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana.  I could have shown you some real buffalo pictures, but I wouldn’t be in them as one should never attempt to take a picture this close to live buffalo (you hear me tourists?!).


DON’T eat the watermelon: 

Bad watermelon may cause malaria.  Excuse me, may cause fever ‘n’ ague.  This particular watermelon is no exception.  There has to be a reason whole thing was $4.






Take up a domestic hobby: 

Work with the natives to eliminate the threat of panthers*: 

Look kids! I caught a big one!  Maybe now our livestock will be safe and we can make a lovely carpet for the den. 

*No Wocket’s were harmed in the making of this post. Well, maybe a little in the pride department.




Once you’ve settled, and the land is safe, have fun on the farm!

Sledding at my cousin’s farm in eastern South Dakota: hills optional.  Look cold?  This is the same regional climate Laura Ingalls Wilder dealt with in her day.  Luckily, when you’re having fun on the prairie, you don’t always worry about being able to feel your extremities.  



But finally, unless you’re sure that the land you’ve settled on is legally yours, don’t get too comfortable!  You may be moving again soon...

Of course, if all of the above is too much work for you, you can always just buy a copy of Oregon Trail and try your luck.  





I hope Pa fares better in your hands...

Poor Pa.  I would help but I have dysentery and I fear I'm not long for this brutal, brutal world.  I will leave it to you to carve a witty yet thoughtful epitaph on my headstone.  

(Make your own grave using this really awesome Oregon Trail Tombstone Generator I just found on the internet!)

Thanks for joining us today Heidi!   Heidi can be found on Goodreads, Twitter, and her blog Bunbury in the Stacks.