Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan was born on 15 September 1890. In order to celebrate the 125th anniversary of her birth the Agatha Christie estate is searching through public vote the best-loved novel by the queen of crime.
Christie is listed as the best-selling novelist of all time on the Guinness Book of World Records. With books that have been translated into 103 languages and 2 billion copies sold worldwide, she is claimed to be the third most widely published author behind Shakespeare and the Bible.
Christie is the author of 66 detective novels and 14 short stories, which she wrote under her own name and feature Hercule Poirot, Jane Marple, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, Parker Pyne. She, also, wrote "The Mousetrap", the longest-running play in the world.
So, which one is your favourite Agatha Christie novel? I admit that I haven't read all sixty-six of her detective stories. Every time I do read one, though, I feel...good.
Her plots are simple ones; they may not seem to be at first, but they all follow a certain pattern that she re-uses in her books. For example, murders by numbers or rhymes, like "The Seven Dials Mystery", "The Thirteen Problems", "Five Little Pigs", "Towards Zero" or "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" and "Hickory Dickory Dock". There is more than one dead body, the least possible suspect turns out to be the murderer, butlers and maids always know something, details and accidental events are important, and there's a final explanation of the mystery where everyone involved gathers to hear the solution to the problem.
Christie follows simple ideas and turns them into mysteries we cannot solve easily. Most of the time we try to figure out who is the killer, which one of the characters will die next, who knows something and does not say. Perhaps that's what makes her stories so alluring; the power to drag the reader into the plot as if were there ourselves.
I cannot distinguish among her books which one is my favourite. But if you can, you are requested to cast your vote for your favourite here: http://worldsfavouritechristie.com/books.
The winning book will be announced in September, the month of Christie’s birth. So, there's plenty of time for you to read more of her novels or go through again some of her stories that have captured millions of people around the globe.
Is there a book by the queen of crime that you like most? Leave a comment below :-)
Her plots are simple ones; they may not seem to be at first, but they all follow a certain pattern that she re-uses in her books. For example, murders by numbers or rhymes, like "The Seven Dials Mystery", "The Thirteen Problems", "Five Little Pigs", "Towards Zero" or "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" and "Hickory Dickory Dock". There is more than one dead body, the least possible suspect turns out to be the murderer, butlers and maids always know something, details and accidental events are important, and there's a final explanation of the mystery where everyone involved gathers to hear the solution to the problem.
Christie follows simple ideas and turns them into mysteries we cannot solve easily. Most of the time we try to figure out who is the killer, which one of the characters will die next, who knows something and does not say. Perhaps that's what makes her stories so alluring; the power to drag the reader into the plot as if were there ourselves.
I cannot distinguish among her books which one is my favourite. But if you can, you are requested to cast your vote for your favourite here: http://worldsfavouritechristie.com/books.
The winning book will be announced in September, the month of Christie’s birth. So, there's plenty of time for you to read more of her novels or go through again some of her stories that have captured millions of people around the globe.
Is there a book by the queen of crime that you like most? Leave a comment below :-)
Read more on The Guardian.
(image source: http://worldsfavouritechristie.com/pages/about-agatha-christie / info source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie , https://www.librarything.com/topic/20848 )
(written by FK for Walkley Library)
No comments:
Post a Comment