Agatha And Me

Thanks to Kerrie from Mysteries in Paradise for hosting a blog tour to celebrate Christie Week 2009 and for allowing me to participate. I feel quite privileged to be in the company of such an array of blogging Christie fans.

By the time I hit 10 years of age I had run out of the meagre offerings of children’s books our local library had to offer. My mother decreed that, among a few select authors, Agatha Christie’s novels would be suitable for my young eyes. At the time I thought it was a comment on my advanced maturity but in retrospect I think she hoped Christie would have enough published content to stop, for a while at least, my endless cries of “Muuuuuuum…what can I read?”. The first Christie book I was allowed to borrow (with my very own adult library card) was Death on the Nile and reading it, not to be overly dramatic, changed my life.

It was the first time I had read a book that wasn’t just a story. Of course there is a great story (more of that later) but what I remember most vividly is the way it introduced me to a whole world I’d been unaware of up until that point. At the beginning of the book, when all the characters are being introduced, they are all palpably excited by the prospect of an impending trip to exotic Egypt. The way that Christie depicted her characters’ anticipation and their subsequent adventures made me want to visit the places she talked about. From then on I became obsessed with two things: Egypt and travelling. I devoured more books, wrote my own stories, trawled encyclopedias and became a regular visitor to the Egyptian room at our State museum.

Me (L) and my friends on the balcony of the Cataract Hotel, Aswan

7 friends and I sailed down the Nile for a week or so on this felucca

During my childhood our family took its limited holidays in places no more than an hour or two’s drive from home but reading this book opened my eyes to the possibility that people could travel further afield than Moana beach. After a couple of other trips to more traditional destinations I finally visited Egypt when I was in my mid-20’s. Happily, it was as exotic, mysterious and wonderful as I’d imagined. I didn’t travel in quite the same style as the people in Christie’s adventure (no staterooms on our boat) but it was a magical, memorable experience all the same.

To this day I approach each new book with a dual anticipation: that I might be entertained by the story inside and learn something new and interesting about people or places beyond my teeny suburb at the bottom (or top depending on your map) of the world. Aren’t I lucky? A hundred or more times each year I get that tingly feeling and I have Agatha Christie to thank for it. Because not just any old writer can be that inspirational.

For those who, inexplicably, haven’t read the book the story concerns Linnet Doyle, one of the richest women in England, who travels to Egypt with her husband Simon for their honeymoon. The couple’s trip is marred by constantly running into Simon’s former fiancée Jacqueline De Bellefort, who was also Linnet’s best friend but now appears to be stalking the newlyweds. The three cruise down the Nile on the Karnak: the passenger list filled out by an array of socialites, servants, mysterious strangers and, of course, the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. There is, as the title suggests, a death (followed by several more) and various minor mysteries for Poirot and his old friend Colonel Race (who is there on the trail of a spy) to unravel.

The story is intricately plotted with its beauty contained in the to-the-second timing of everyone’s movements. Like a great magician, Christie is a master of distraction and keeps all but Poirot’s little grey cells busy pondering jewel thefts and legal shenanigans while the real murderer goes undetected. The characters, all of them, are vividly depicted, leaping from the page in rich imagery that might seem like a cliché until you realise Christie is the original who countless others have imitated. And of course there is the marvellous sense of place and the exotic atmosphere that the book exudes.

Over the years I have re-read the book, watched the film ’til the tape broke (which is why I was the sole person to nominate Peter Ustinov as favourite Hercule Poirot), badgered my theatre group to stage the play (which Christie also wrote), wasted far too many hours on the hidden puzzle game and paid homage to Death on the Nile in a dozen other ways. In preparation for this blog tour I listened to a version narrated by everyone else’s favourite M Poirot, David Suchet. Although the book was first published in 1937 and despite the fact I know the story backwards it was as gripping, timeless and immersive as ever.

Thank you Agatha, it’s been a magical trip so far; as always I can’t wait for the next chapter.

 

My life according to the books I’ve read this year

A fun meme doing the rounds that I first spotted at Petrona is

Using only books you have read this year (2009), cleverly answer these questions. Try not to repeat a book title.

If you want to  check that I haven’t cheated you can see all my 2009 reads by clicking on the 2009 tag in the cloud to the right. I’ve read 83 books this year so far. As I said when commenting on the post at Petrona I should read some more upbeat titles once in a while to avoid looking like a troubled soul when doing this sort of thing. I was going to write some explanations for my choices but decided against it. Make of them what you will.

Describe Yourself: Careless in Red

How do you feel: Alone

Describe where you currently live: The Tin Roof Blowdown

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Valley of the Lost

Your favorite form of transport: The Night Ferry

Your best friend is: The Girl Who Played with Fire

You and your friends are: The Sweetness of Life

What’s the weather like: Dead Cold

Favourite time of day: The Darkest Hour

If your life was a: Devil’s Game

What is life to you: Trick or Treat

Your fear: Pandemic

What is the best advice you have to give: Search the Dark

Thought for the Day: Murder will Travel

How I would like to die: Death by Sudoku

My soul’s present condition: State of the Onion

 

Sunday Salon 2009-05-10 – Mother’s Day

As it’s Mother’s Day today (at least in our corner of the world) this week I’m going to say another thanks to my mum for passing on her love of books to me. One of my earliest blog posts was about books as presents and there I highlighted a couple of the books she’s given me over the years. But my bookish memories of my mum don’t stop there.

SA State Library Institute Building

When I started school I could already read and by the end of the first school term I had read all the set books for that year and the next two. My mum still talks about being called into the school and being begged by the nuns to find a way to get me some more books because I’d read everything they had. From that point on my mum and I started our weekly tradition of a visit to the local Institute Library on Saturday mornings.

Here in Australia (and the UK too but I don’t know about other places) before free public libraries there were private ones run by Mechanics’ Institutes (also known as Working Mens’ Institutes). These organisations were created to provide education and lectures to working men and many, including our local one, ran a library that books could be borrowed from for a small annual fee. I don’t think there are any Institutes still functioning in my state but in Melbourne the Mechanics’ Institute of Victioria (with its library The Athenaeum) has been going strong since 1839.

Through my mum and the local Institute I was introduced to the seemingly never-ending offerings from Enid Blyton, The Bobbsey Twins, Trixie Beldon, Nancy Drew and many others. As you can see my preference for crime fiction started early. I also read my first ‘adult’ (as in not writte for kids not as in full of nude people) books thanks to the Institute and can still remember how wonderful and grown up I felt when my mum announced I was ready for Edgar Allan Poe.

Eventually of course I could go to the library on my own and I loved having my independence but mum and I have continued to talk about the books we read. When I lived in another state or was overseas mum’s care packages would always contain books and chocolate. Today we swap books, give each other recommendations and we always watch the First Tuesday Book Club (either in the same house or we sit in our respective homes and talk on the phone while watching). We usually end up arguing (either with each other or the television) but in a good, comforting way.

In some way or another lots of my best memories involve my mum, a book or both together and so for that, and the million other reasons I haven’t articulated here, I hope mum has a good day today. She’s always loved finger food (appetizers) more than main meals (entreés) and now, at 81, she says she’s earned the right to eat what she likes. So for today’s lunch I’ve made a swag of her favourite finger food and we’re not having a main meal at all. And at some point we’ll start talking about books without even realising it.

 

Sunday Salon 2009-01-25: Expectations

This week hasn’t been a great week of reading, or blogging, or reading of blogs for me. I have been particularly busy at work which has given me far less time than I’d normally spend on these activities but that’s only part of the explanation. I’ve also been struggling with expectations.

I started out the week tackling Barbara Vine’s The Minotaur for an upcoming discussion at 4 Mystery Addicts. You’ll see from my review that I was underwhelmed. I didn’t know anything about the book itself but I did have an expectation that someone of Ruth Rendell’s experience and skill wouldn’t make such clumsy writing mistakes as the ones which littered this book (Vine is a pseudonym of Rendell’s).

I then picked Alex Barclay’s Blood Runs Cold off Mount TBR. I’d heard the book discussed late last year on the BBC Books Podcast and the reviewers made is sound so interesting that I immediately ordered myself a copy. I’m not sure now what the reviewers found so engaging but the book hasn’t exactly kept me up at night. It’s not awful, it’s just not very memorable. I had no trouble putting it down a third of the way through in favour of something else.

The something else is Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played With Fire. Apart from the fact I want to read the book the reason I chose to do it right now was that I was finding it very difficult to avoid seeing reviews and discussions of it at the blogs and reading groups where I hang out online. The first book in this series was in my top ten books of last year so of course I had some expectations but I wanted to have as few as possible when I read the book. I didn’t want to know what anyone else thought: not the publishers (I hadn’t even read the blurb on the back of my copy), not fellow bloggers, not ‘professional’ reviewers. I wanted to make up my own mind with as few pre-conceived ideas as I could. For me there’s nothing quite so annoying as reading a book that doesn’t measure up to the expectations I have of it and these days it’s hard to come to a book with ‘fresh’ eyes and no expectations. But it’s the best way to read.

I’m about two-thirds of the way through The Girl Who Played With Fire so you’ll have to wait to find out how it measured up on the expectations scale. Luckily it’s a long weekend here in Australia so, with the housework sacrificed in favour of reading (again), I should finish it before heading back to work on Tuesday.

 

Sunday Salon 2009-01-10: What makes a book good?

This is perhaps not quite the right tone for my first Sunday Salon post but it is the reading-related issue that has been consuming my thoughts this week . I’ve barely blogged (only one post yesterday) and hardly read (all will become clear) this week so I really only have this experience to discuss .

On Monday I started a book that I’d been saving for a while. I knew this week would be a tiring one as a big project I’ve been toiling away at for ages went into production at work so I wanted something guaranteed to be gripping and entertaining for my downtime. I was looking for a ’sure thing’ rather than taking a risk on an unknown author (which I do enjoy doing but just didn’t feel like doing this week). As I loved this author’s first two books and am planning to read his most recent one in April when it is due for discussion at Oz Mystery Readers I thought it made sense to choose Michael Robotham’s The Night Ferry to read this week.

Alas I have struggled virtually since page one to engage with the characters or the story and have almost given up on multiple occasions. A week later I’m still 150 pages from the end (when I normally read around two books a week) and have taken to rewarding myself with teeny treats when I finish a chapter or two. I’ll eventually review it here and will save my more detailed comments for that but will simply say now that I am not finding it to be a good book.

Why am I still reading it? As I’ve discussed before I’m not averse to putting a book down unfinished but I have deliberately not done that this time. The reason is that I keep thinking I must have missed something crucial. Something that other people (Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise for example) can see that I can’t. Surely a book can be looked at objectively and determined to be good, can’t it?

Perhaps not. At another online reading group I belong to, 4 Mystery Addicts, a list of the group’s collective top and bottom books for last year was just collated. Several books appear on both lists including two (Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and CJ Box’s Blue Heaven) which appear in the top ten and bottom ten. Both also happen to have been in my own top ten for 08 so I clearly think both of them are good (even great) books. But at least a couple of people think each is bad enough to make to an ‘awfulest books of the year’ list. Are some of us wrong? Can a book be good and bad? Is it all just a matter of taste? Is there not some standard measurement that can be applied so I’ll know when it’s my fault I don’t enjoy a book?

I’m going back to the reading chair now to finish off  The Night Ferry so I can start the new reading week with a good book.

 

100 books given away

Logo artwork courtesy of BookMooch.com

As of today I have officially given away one hundred books via BookMooch.com (not counting those still in transit). Such a milestone seemed worthy of recognition.

For the uninitiated, BookMooch is a website that facilitates the swapping of books across the globe. As is the way of serendipity in a web 2.0 world I first discovered the site, indeed the whole notion of web-enabled book swapping, when reading the profile of one of my GoodReads friends (thanks Sun). I joined BookMooch in April 2008 and fell in love.

The concept behind BookMooch is that you list books you’re willing to give away and each time you give away a book you get a point (or 3 if you send the book out of your country). You then use those points to request books that are listed by other members of the site. You pay nothing to join the site and nothing for the books you get but you do pay for postage on the books you give away.

Here are my top five reasons to love BookMooch:

It’s a cheap way to feed my addiction. I’ve spent roughly $500 on posting my books which might sound like a lot but in the same time I’ve received 75 books and have accumulated enough points for 45-90 more (depending on whether I get them from overseas or within Australia). So each book I mooch costs me a maximum of $5. That’s sweet economics in a country where new release books cost upwards of $35 and even a decent second hand book is likely to be $10.

It’s a better option than second hand shops in a small city. There’s a shop that I’ve visited once or twice a month for three and a half years and not once have I seen any Scandinavian crime fiction or much other than mainstream blockbuster authors on the shelves. BookMooch offers me a global bookshelf from which to choose. I have sent books to or received books from people within Australia as well as the US, Japan, Hungary, Cyprus, Poland, France, The Philippines, Greece, Ireland, England, Switzerland, Israel, Italy, The Netherlands, Canada and Trinidad and Tobego! I have several regular moochees (is that a word?) who are happy to wait on the exceedingly slow sea mail from Australia.

Warm Fuzzy Feelings. I’m pathologically incapable of throwing books away but I have limited storage space. I do donate some books to charity but they’re getting picky these days and I get a real buzz out of sending my books around the country and across the globe to fellow book lovers. In case you think that makes me odd in a survey of BookMooch members conducted last October 75% of respondents reported feeling good when they send books away. We can’t all be barking mad. 

I can try new things. When I see a review of a book somewhere and think it sounds interesting I add the title to my bookmooch wishlist and wait for someone to add it to their inventory. It’s probably not the quickest way to do it but it’s cheaper than buying books I might not like and it’s proven more successful than using my local public library at finding new-to-me authors. Some of the books I’ve mooched have been so awful I’ve re-listed them without even finishing them but they are a tiny minority.

It’s Green. Ish. Buying books which will be read once and sit forever more on a shelf is not the kindest thing we can do for our troubled planet. Even though the publishing industry is starting to introduce more sustainable practices such as using recycled paper and funding sustainable tree farming there is still a massive carbon footprint from the publishing industry. Obviously reading e-books would be even more planet-friendly but in Australia this just isn’t feasible yet as we don’t have much choice in the way of e-readers. While I wait for an Aussie version of a Kindle I’m trying very hard not to buy new books which will only be read once. We have to consume less and share more in all facets of our lives and swapping books with fellow addicts is a good step to a more carbon-friendly life.

For the record I do know there are other book swapping sites but the main “competitor” to BookMooch is annoyingly US-only so I’m not giving them a plug

 

BTT: Time Enough?

This week’s Booking Through Thursday topic is to answer a couple of time related questions.

Do you get to read as much as you want to read?

As with most passions my first answer is, not surprisingly, no. I often dream of taking a reading holiday. In my dream I don’t have to do anything: not see a sight, take a tour, frolic with family or hike a hill. I would lie on a gently rocking swing of some sort with a pile of books by my side and a constant supply of drinks with umbrellas in them. In the end though I’ll keep it as a fantasy because I suspect that, as with all good things, you can have too much and I’d hate for one of my life’s great enjoyments to become something mundane. I think, perhaps, that I enjoy the limited amount of reading-for-pleasure minutes that I have precisely because they are limited. I squeeze reading time out of busy days or allocate it to myself as a reward for doing something unpleasant (like housework or not falling asleep in a meeting) and so I really appreciate it. If I had an unlimited supply of reading hours I just might not appreciate them as much as I do now.

If you had (magically) more time to read–what would you read? Something educational? Classic? Comfort Reading? Escapism? Magazines?

I read a lot of stuff I’m not terribly interested in as part of my job. So any magically available time would be spent on reading for escape, comfort and entertainment. In other words more of the same sort of things as I review on this blog. A couple of years ago I had a discussion with a woman on my morning bus ride to work. We were stuck in an abnormal traffic delay and I remarked that at least we both had our books with us so it wouldn’t be too bad. She grimaced and said she was only reading hers because her a colleague had loaned it to her but she was bored to tears by it and she really wanted to be reading the Jane Green novel she’d bought some weeks before. I realised I had often wished to be reading something else myself and that was the moment I decided that I would never again struggle through someone else’s idea of a worthy book that must be read. I’ll give most things a go but when I stop enjoying the reading experience then I switch to something else.

 

Where’s all the book chat?

Today I listened to last week’s BBC 5 Live’s book review show (via podcast) and before the show had even finished I’d ordered one of the books under discussion (Alex Barclay’s Blood Runs Cold in case you’re wondering). I’d never heard of the author before but the reviewers’ enthusiastic discussion made the book sound like just my sort of thing and I decided to treat myself.

As I waited for my order to be processed I wondered, as I have done many times in the past, why books are not discussed more widely in mainstream media? Movies are discussed and reviewed everywhere: dedicated TV shows, pages upon pages in the newspapers, daily spots on major news shows, their own magazines and, last time I looked, several dozen podcasts. Books, in comparison, barely get a mention in mainstream media.

In my observation a lot of people read books. At least half of the people on any bus I catch are reading a book and the Borders store near my office is inundated with customers each and every day. Where are all these readers supposed to hear about new and interesting books? Especially if they’re readers of what the snobbish literati sneeringly call genre fiction? I can count on one hand the number of times a crime fiction book has been highlighted on Australian radio’s only book-related show and the one TV show that discusses books profiles precisely 22 books each year . I can only remember one crime fiction book among them and only a couple of other genre fiction titles.

I’m prepared to gamble heavily that I’m not the only one who’s bought a book during or directly because of a discussion on the BBC book review show (today was not my first time by the way). A good book review or discussion can make you want to dart off to the nearest bookstore in the same way a decent review of a movie sends you to the nearest cinema or DVD store.

There are at least four regular TV shows dedicated to fishing on free -to-air television in my city of roughly 1 million people. Surely a show featuring a weekly round up of crime fiction releases (or any other genre) and reviews by genuine readers could garner at least as much support as a fishing show. Couldn’t it? It wouldn’t exactly break the bank in terms of production costs and publishers and bookstores would be ready advertisers. Wouldn’t they?

Or am I missing something? Is there a reason why books just don’t rate discussion in the wider media? In fact aside from the blogoshpere books don’t rate much chat at all (not even in amateur podcasting circles).

Why is it so?

 

To finish or not to finish

It’s a curly question for avid readers. For years I slogged my way through every book I started regardless of my enjoyment level. It was thanks, mostly, to my favourite high school English teacher who said that’s the way good people read. She was right about a lot of things so I persevered. But last year I stopped finishing books I wasn’t enjoying. And I’ve never felt better about my reading.

It’s been roughly a year and I’ve stopped reading 15 books before the end (out of a total of 83 books started during that time). Not only do I enjoy my reading more, because I stop reading when I’m not enjoying, but I’ve been far more adventurous with the authors and genres I’ve tried.  It no longer matters if I try something and don’t like it: I don’t have to finish it. I’ve found loads of great books I probably wouldn’t have tried in the old days.

Also, and quite perversely, knowing I can quit has, on a couple of occasions, been enough to get me through a rough spot and go on to finish a book and really enjoy it. I read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo earlier this year the first few pages completely failed to gab my attention. Knowing I could stop whenever I liked made me quite relaxed and willing to read a few more pages (at around page 40 or so I was hooked). In the old days I’d have been gritting my teeth and avoiding the book all together because I didn’t want to face reading 480 pages of something I wasn’t enjoying. Of course I’ve always, or at least since I left Mrs Mac’s class, been able to stop reading whenever I liked but I never believed that and never did it until I made a conscious decision to read for pure pleasure. 

Generally, once I’ve decided not to finish a book I don’t go back to it. I take it back to the library, add it to my bookmooch inventory or give it away. This week though I’ve decided not to finish Batya Gur’s Literary Murder: A Critical Case but, for reasons I can’t quite put into words, I’m keeping the book and will try it again in a year or three. Perhaps it’s because I really, really wanted to like this book (it’s set in Israel which is just about my favourite place on earth that’s not my home) but whatever the reason I’m happy with this decision too.

So while I’m grateful to Mrs Mac for the wonderful things she taught me I’ve decided that not finishing a book doesn’t make me a bad person, just a happy reader.

 

Books as presents

This week’s Booking Through Thursday question struck a chord with me

What, if any, memorable or special book have you ever gotten as a present? Birthday or otherwise. What made it so notable? The person who gave it? The book itself? The “gift aura?”

Some of my earliest memories are of the books I received as presents as a child. Every birthday, Christmas and special event saw my brother and I receive a book from our parents. Well officially the books were from both our parents but in reality we know it was mum who picked them out; our dad is a voracious newspaper reader but I don’t recall ever seeing him read a book. When financial times were tough the book was the only present and when things were better the book was among the gifts received. But the book was the constant factor.

My mum’s love of reading and the fact that she treated books with such importance as to make them the first (sometimes only) gift we received for special occasions has, I am sure, led to my own love of books.

One of the books which stands out from among the many my mum has selected was Enid Blyton’s The Naughtiest Girl is a Monitor ( I found this picture of the cover of my version over at the marvellous Enid Blyton Society website). The book is one of a series featuring Elizabeth Allen who is a boarding school student where, even though she tries hard, she often gets into trouble through being misunderstood. I do recall identifying very strongly with Elizabeth in this story for what seem, now, like very childish reasons but also often imagined myself being transported from my hum-drum suburban school to the place of midnight feasts and other adventures. It’s one of the books I retained well into adulthood and only lost it during a flood at my house a few years ago.

One of the other books I remember very fondly is a hardcover book that contained both When We Were Young and Now We Are Six: two collections of poetry by A A Milne. This cover isn’t exactly like mine but it’s close. I must have read those poems a hundred times each and, even now, can recite quite a few from memory. I used to love the way the words sounded when read (with what I now know to be the right cadence) and was inspired by them to write many of my own poems (a few if which were published in the children’s pages of our Sunday paper which was cause for much childhood pride).

I received many more books during my childhood and borrowed hundreds more than that from libraries and friends but these two have always stuck in my memory. I think they must have exactly the right book for me at the time they were given. Thanks mum.