8 posts tagged “agatha christie”
1. Secret Societies
2. 1984
3. Animal Farm
4. Cicero
5. Catch-22
6. Dumb Witness
7. Lord of the Flies
8. The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights
9. Ulysses
10. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
11. The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time
12. Girl With A Pearl Earring
13. Candide
14. For One More Day
15. Thomas Paine's Rights of Man
16. King Arthur
17. The War of Art
18. Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X
19. When You Are Engulfed In Flames
20. Five Little Pigs
21. Boudica
22. The Writer's Journey
23. A Cat Among Pigeons
24. The City of Falling Angels
25. The Hollow
26. Taken at the Flood
27. Devil May Care
28. Walden
29. Echo Maker
30. Three Act Tragedy
31. Dead Man's Folly
32. Don't Know Much About Mythology
33. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
34. The Last Lecture
35. Evil Under the Sun
36. No Plot? No Problem
37. As I Lay Dying
38. The Graveyard Book
39. The Tales of Beedle the Bard
40. The Book of General Ignorance by John Mitchinson
41. The Tale of the Christmas Pudding by Agatha Christie
42. Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie
I didn't quite get to 50 books this year, but still that's an eclectic array, I think. There's a fair share of Agatha Christie novels, but that's just about all played out. I have 3 books in the hopper I haven't quite gotten into (and thus through), so I hope to get through those for the beginning of this year. My reading tapered significantly during Nanowrimo and never really recovered. I don't expect it to recover much until after February for reasons I'll explain later (don't worry, you won't be impressed).
1. Secret Societies
2. 1984
3. Animal Farm
4. Cicero
5. Catch-22
6. Dumb Witness
7. Lord of the Flies
8. The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights
9. Ulysses
10. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
11. The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time
12. Girl With A Pearl Earring
13. Candide
14. For One More Day
15. Thomas Paine's Rights of Man
16. King Arthur
17. The War of Art
18. Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X
19. When You Are Engulfed In Flames
20. Five Little Pigs
21. Boudica
22. The Writer's Journey
23. A Cat Among Pigeons
24. The City of Falling Angels
25. The Hollow
26. Taken at the Flood
27. Devil May Care
28. Walden
29. Echo Maker
30. Three Act Tragedy
31. Dead Man's Folly
32. Don't Know Much About Mythology
33. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
34. The Last Lecture
35. Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie
Yet another excellent murder mystery. I won't belabor the point.
36. No Plot? No Problem by Chris Baty
I've had this book for a while (since the 2007 NaNoWriMo, I think). I honestly garnered more good knowledge from Stephen King's book on writing that this. That said, it was a little helpful to skim through this and just remember to think about the characters themselves. They write the story, not the other way around.
Next on my plate: Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (a hefty piece to absorb) and As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner.
1. Secret Societies
2. 1984
3. Animal Farm
4. Cicero
5. Catch-22
6. Dumb Witness
7. Lord of the Flies
8. The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights
9. Ulysses
10. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
11. The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time
12. Girl With A Pearl Earring
13. Candide
14. For One More Day
15. Thomas Paine's Rights of Man
16. King Arthur
17. The War of Art
18. Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X
19. When You Are Engulfed In Flames
20. Five Little Pigs
21. Boudica
22. The Writer's Journey
23. A Cat Among Pigeons
24. The City of Falling Angels
25. The Hollow
26. Taken at the Flood
27. Devil May Care
28. Walden
29. Echo Maker by Richard Powers
30. Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie
31. Dead Man's Folly by Agatha Christie
Continuing string of Agatha Christie kick, these two books are very good. The first, I thought, was predictable, and that's perhaps either because I've sorted out the formula or (most likely) that I've seen this story or character set before. The latter had a lot of modern mystery suspense to it, and I'm sure it was the basis for at least one CSI episode....
32. Don't Know Much About Mythology by Kenneth C. Davis
I love mythology, especially Greek and Norse. I still have the first mythology book I read in high school (I suppose I never gave it back to my English teacher when I should have...). While not quite very deep, this book covers the breadth of mythology, from European to Asian, African and Australian. There are a lot of holes in my knowledge, but I love the Jungian connections these mythologies have in common. Well worth a read if you're into mythology.
33. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
I found this via a small post in 43 Folders while thinking about the upcoming NaNoWriMo starting this Saturday. It's a great little book that shares Mr. King's early writing days, his thoughts on what you should know to be a writer, how to go about being a writer, and the accident he suffered to make him finish this book. I've read a few such books off and on (most recently, the War of Art by Steven Pressfield) and I'm not surprised that it has similar themes: work hard, consistent, and often. It really brings me to mind Edison's quote: "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." How you go about the work doesn't matter (King does no more than 2 1/2 drafts; Kurt Vonnegut rewrites every page until it is perfect for him), just that you go about it with an end in mind. That's my goal. Not only to get to 50,000 words by Nov. 30th, but to get to a complete first draft by then. It won't, by any means, be a good book. Just a complete one. But that's an upcoming post.
Wow, I might not make 50 books this year. Damn.
I'm still working my way through Walden. There's quite a bit to grok as I go along, so I've branched off reading a few other trivial books on my desk.
1. Secret Societies
2. 1984
3. Animal Farm
4. Cicero
5. Catch-22
6. Dumb Witness
7. Lord of the Flies
8. The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights
9. Ulysses
10. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
11. The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time
12. Girl With A Pearl Earring
13. Candide
14. For One More Day
15. Thomas Paine's Rights of Man
16. King Arthur
17. The War of Art
18. Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X
19. When You Are Engulfed In Flames
20. Five Little Pigs
21. Boudica
22. The Writer's Journey
23. A Cat Among Pigeons
24. The City of Falling Angels
25. The Hollow
26. Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie
27. Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks
All in all I enjoyed the immersion into the scenery the most and it was a short read. You're better off reading Mr. Fleming's own work.
1. Secret Societies
2. 1984
3. Animal Farm
4. Cicero
5. Catch-22
6. Dumb Witness
7. Lord of the Flies
8. The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights
9. Ulysses
10. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
11. The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time
12. Girl With A Pearl Earring
13. Candide
14. For One More Day
15. Thomas Paine's Rights of Man
16. King Arthur
17. The War of Art
18. Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X
19. When You Are Engulfed In Flames
20. Five Little Pigs
21. Boudica
22. The Writer's Journey
23. A Cat Among Pigeons
24. The City of Falling Angels
25. The Hollow by Agatha Christie
At the top of my queue, a book I've been meaning to read for a very long time:
1. Secret Societies
2. 1984
3. Animal Farm
4. Cicero
5. Catch-22
6. Dumb Witness
7. Lord of the Flies
8. The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights
9. Ulysses
10. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
11. The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time
12. Girl With A Pearl Earring
13. Candide
14. For One More Day
15. Thomas Paine's Rights of Man
16. King Arthur
17. The War of Art
18. Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X
19. When You Are Engulfed In Flames
20. Five Little Pigs
21. Boudica by Vanessa Collingridge
On the heels of reading the well researched King Arthur, I decided to snatch this book out of M's stack and give it a read. It was a disappointment, to say the least. There is such scant information on Boudica herself that it barely fills fifty pages, let along 280. While from a journalistic approach, the book depends less on research and more on interview, opinion, and feminist slant. While I don't mind the feminist slant, really, it just started to take away from the main topic of the book. Feminine repression is historical fact. Actually, the last seventy or so pages go on to represent every reincarnation of Boudica as a tool for reinforcing feminine suppression and little on the character herself, while the first 150 pages spent on describing the life and times of Britain during Roman rule and how strong female characters are repressed and despised in Roman society. History is what it is, and we can't really change how we've done, but I just felt that it was less of a historical accounting of the character and a bit misleading on the whole.
22. The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler
I think I picked this book up a few years ago when I started to read quite a bit of Campbell's mythological work as well as tinkering around with my own writing. Unfortunately, this book hardly meets any sort of ambitious level. Rather, is copies Campbell's ideas and cookie cutter fits them into the Hollywood version of storymaking. While I agree with a lot of Campbell's tenets, there are a LOT of ways to tell a good story that do not follow an exact method. While it was a good read to think about characters and ideas, it tends to force you to think that there's only one way to write a movie.
23. A Cat Among Pigeons by Agatha Christie
1. Secret Societies
2. 1984
3. Animal Farm
4. Cicero
5. Catch-22
6. Dumb Witness
7. Lord of the Flies
8. The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights
9. Ulysses
10. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
11. The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time
12. Girl With A Pearl Earring
13. Candide
14. For One More Day
15. Thomas Paine's Rights of Man
16. King Arthur
17. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
18. Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X by Aaron Hillegas
I normally don't list technical books under 'books read', since I rarely read them from cover to cover, but this was simple, straight forward and probably the first in a long time I've read from cover to cover.
19. When You Are Engulfed In Flames by David Sedaris
In short, a witty, clever little collection of essays about his family and life. Just as funny as his previous work and good for a few laughs, I think.
1. Secret Societies
2. 1984
3. Animal Farm
4. Cicero
5. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Quote: "There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle."
It's not quite damned if you do, damned if you don't (to which, most people just do). Rather it's, not matter what choice you make nullifies the clause itself. If you're crazy, you have to tell someone you're crazy, but if you tell them you're crazy, then it automatically assumes you're sane enough to make a reasonable decision (and therefore, not crazy).
The book itself tends to weave itself together entertainingly, but there's no sort of time continuum. I often felt things happened either out of order, or the writer was winding time forward or back based on the chapter he wrote. The ending was just... uninspired. I suppose it was 'third choice' syndrome, when faced with 2 untenable choices, a third one is made up. An escape clause, so to speak. It was disappointing.
6. Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie
Again this is a story where facts and pieces are put together like a jigsaw puzzle (except, like most mystery stories, you don't get all the facts at once... they draw out in long chapters). Worth a read if you like old mysteries, and it has a bit of a different ending than the usual 'point to the murderer in the room'.
