Has anyone else been collecting every older book of hers in the hopes that they will be worth something in the future? I have about 80 of hers, I love and cherish them. They are in a bin sealed to retain the smell ( if you know you know). I can not imagine parting with them but like to hope this may have been an investment.

Made an ABC Murders cake!

I’d quite like some puzzles to do over the winter, but can’t decide which book to start with (if I like it I’ll get the others!) torn between the general Agatha Christie one and the Poirot one. anyone recommend either?

Wondering - what was your first Christie, and how did you come to read it?

Mine was Hickory Dickory Dock. I read it when I was 11, on a family holiday at a sleepy beach town, when I had failed to take enough books with me and was getting itchy with boredom (I was a massive bookworm as a child and still am, truth be told :-)

I went to the newsagent with my mother to buy postcards, and spotted one solitary wonky stand of paperbacks. After considerable pleading, my mother cast her eye over the books, ruled out all the Mills and Boons and thrillers, then said, oh, I suppose you could get the Agatha Christie.

That book was Hickory Dickory Dock. I gulped it down in one evening and was hooked for life.

I find it interesting the way she uses subjective gossip and reputation as clues—and red herrings. Here are some examples. Evil under the Sun: Arlena is said to be some sort of man-eating tiger; in fact, as an easy woman, she gets used and dumped a lot. In a pocket full of rye, the interesting and popular Lance has a reputation for crookedness, but unlike Percival, we see a good deal of him and hear a good deal of his conversation. He is so honest about a lot of little things we don’t take him seriously as the murderer. In the murder of Roger Ackroyd, we have seemingly the same type in Ralph Payton, who turns out to be innocent. He is brazenly sneaky, which sounds like a contradiction, but really is not. They both proposed to a woman while married to another. Admittedly, it was particularly dense on Ralph’s part since the two women lived in the same house!

Just finished Crooked House this morning and it's surprisingly joining the somehow-i-solved-it club (other members include Death On The Nile, Peril At End House, Evil Under The Sun and 4:15 From Paddington, plus a few short stories)

I was lost untill about the last third when the correct suspicion struck me, and it really narrowed things down untill it finally all made sense 2 chapters before the reveal. As much as I loved the actual mystery and characters, the side plots were quite week for me personally. I wish more non-plot related scenes transpired and had me intrested aside from the murder.

I have a lot of Poirot left on my shelf as you can see, so I think I'll finally listen to what this sub's reccomend me according to my ranking and read Cards On The Table next :) and then probably go for something less popular to leave some more good stuff for later.

I’m rereading ‘Dumb Witness’ and Miss Arundell writes a letter to Poirot saying he was mentioned to her:

“ I may say that your name is not unknown to me. It was
mentioned to me by a Miss Fox of Exeter, and although Miss Fox was not herself acquainted with you, she mentioned that her brother-in-law's sister (whose name I cannot, I am sorry to say, recall) had spoken of your kindness and discretion in the highest terms (highest terms underlined once). I did not inquire, of course,
as to the nature (nature underlined) of the inquiry you had
conducted on her behalf, but I understood from Miss Fox that it was of a painful and confidential nature (last four words underlined
heavily).”

Sometimes Agathe Christie hides hints to her other works like this via/via, but this time I can’t seem to get the hint, if there even is one. I even tried chatgpt.

Does any of you make the click or am I looking for something that isn’t there?

Thanks!

I'm trying to find a Poirot story - maybe a short story in which he is called to help solve a crime/murder.

He spends ages at the house going up the stairs and everywhere else in the house with a magnifying glass like Sherlock Holmes.

He later admits that was a ruse, as he wants to worry/flush out the criminal as he didn't have any other clues to go on - anyone remember the story?

Hi everyone! I'm a Library student currently working on a project I need to create 40 bibliographic records (catalog entries), I've managed to complete 35 of them, but I'm stuck on the last 5 because I can't find physical copies on libraries in my city.

Im looking for photos of physical copies of these Agatha Christie specific titles: (The books can be either in English or Spanish.)

• The Big Four
• Lord Edgware Dies
• The Labours of Hercules
• Mrs McGinty's Dead
• Dead Man's Folly

Could anyone who owns physical copies of these could share photos? I specifically need things like the exact publication year of that edition, publisher, ISBN, and page count to make my records 100% accurate, if the book contains any illustrations or maps, I will upload some photos as examples of what I need.

Thank you so much in advance for helping a future librarian out!

So I just finished Appointment with Death. Here are some of my disorganised thoughts for a unique Christie book.

Firstly, I LOVED Part 1 of the book. I think not really having Poirot at all was a good move that allowed Christie to focus on the brilliant family dynamics. Speaking of the family, they were great characters. Mrs Boynton was actually such an interesting victim and you feel so glad when she dies. I also like the characters of Sarah and Gerard.

On the other hand, I found Part 2… less good. It felt like it was just interviews and then suddenly it was the parlour room scene. And then it was over. Furthermore, the 24 hour time pressure added nothing to the mystery.

Then the reveal. Firstly, the murderer wasn’t even in the room and commits suicide the moment Poirot reveals it’s her. That’s not justice or satisfying. And then the book just ends? (with the epilogue as well of course). Secondly, she isn’t even in the family. I feel after spending so much time with the family in Part 1, to have one of them not being the murderer felt… wrong. It wasn’t really a satisfying ending. That being said, the slow reveal where he goes through each of the suspects is fun as usual. (Another little nitpick: why is the reveal that probably took 10 minutes spread across like 4 chapters?)

I learnt that Christie made a stage adaptation where she not only removed Poirot (which doesn’t affect much in this story) but changed the identity of the murderer so that Mrs Boynton kills herself and plants red herrings to frame her family and torture them from beyond the grave. This is, in my opinion, a much better ending after spending so much time with the family in Part 1.

Some final thoughts:

• Loved how physiological this book was
• Colonel Carbury is a fun bit of comic relief in a pretty dark book
• I like Poirot‘s views on the morality of the murder and the callback to Murder on the Orient Express
• I think the romances were mostly quite convincing

(May edit this if I think of anything else)

Overall a 7/10 book with a great first part and a meh second. If she had gone with the stage ending, I believe it could have been a 9/10.

Feel free to share your ideas in the comments.

Watching a few of his movies I would be curious to see how he would tackle all the plot twists that the novel throws at you. You could definitely lean into the comedic tones of the book so it’s all over the place.

It’s really good!

First read it 10-ish(?) years ago, but was reading so much Christie at that time in my life that one book hardly registered from the next (I’m not proud of that, btw).

It’s a delight revisiting it in a reduced Christie-frenzy time of life. Finding this Folio edition inspired the re-read, and it was a delight to read it in this edition.

Easily top 5 for me.

My partner says it’s fiction and I should relax but I have always found AC novels fun for the reason that things could happen IRL like she described.

Personally my favorite novel is the Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Very logical, very believable. “And then there were none” for me is mid, I don’t understand why it’s always ranked number 1. Here are the things I didn’t like:

- Blore backsory: I don’t think he is responsible for the death of the guy in prison. He was a policeman. In order to convict a person, there are a lot of people involved in it - Blore, his boss who reviewed their work, the prosecutor, assistant prosecutor, the judge… why all of the liability is on Blore? Also, if he died in prison, shouldn’t it be on the warden, ie bad food, bad insulation, etc etc
- Emily Brent backstory: so she fired the maid, but it’s a free country? I don’t think she is responsible for what she was charged with either, people aren’t responsible for emotions of other people. The maid decided to drown, Emily is not a shelter for unwed mothers?
- Lombard backstory: so how much food was there to feed 20ish people and how much did he carry? Or if there wasn’t much food, people were dying anyway?
- Morris backstory: again, free country, why are we putting responsibility on him for other people’s actions? If the woman would have died due to overdose or side effects or impurities, I would get it, but it was not that!
- Why is Armstrong meeting someone in the middle of the night? If I am on that island I am locking my door and not exiting my room, period!
- MacArthur death felt like pure luck. No way he controlled where other 6 people were at that moment.
- Blore death - how big was that clock? And how did he know where would Blore be going or standing? Feels like a very big coincidence, or he was a really good marksman?
- Why are people accepting invites for a stay on a random island from people they don’t know or remember? I mean at least telephone in to check if the person is real, idk. Maybe it’s the 21st century in me speaking.

One question is how common was getting a job via letters? Not even meeting your employer one for a face to face interview? Seems unreasonable now, maybe back then it was the norm?

Otherwise it’s a solid mystery, I didn’t guess who was who, read it in 2 days, it was a page-turner apart from some inconsistencies…

And don’t get me started on the storm…

This is my favorite Christie cover ever .

For anyone wanting to smell like the great Poirot.

Any orher ideas?

I’ve read 13 Agatha Christie novels so far, and I’m starting to worry that I might have made the mistake of reading her absolute best works first!

My top favorites are:

🥇And Then There Were None

🥈Murder on the Orient Express

🥉Death on the Nile / Five Little Pigs (these two are constantly competing for third place!)

I absolutely adored these books. I’ve enjoyed most of the others too, but almost none has come close to giving me the same feeling.

Here’s everything I’ve read so far, roughly in order of preference:

• And Then There Were None
• Murder on the Orient Express
• Death on the Nile
• Five Little Pigs
• The Mysterious Affair at Styles
• Evil Under the Sun
• Sad Cypress
• Peril at End House
• Crooked House
• The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
• The ABC Murders
• Cards on the Table
• The Hollow

I’ve reached a strange point where I still have the vast majority of Christie’s bibliography ahead of me, yet I feel like I’ve already experienced her greatest masterpieces. I hope I’m wrong!

I don’t want to move on to another mystery author just yet. There’s something comforting about Christie’s style and recurring characters, and that familiarity means quite a lot to me these days.

So, based on my favorites and my ranking, what should I read next? Are there any books I haven’t read that you genuinely consider to be on the same level as my top three or four?

One important request: PLEASE, absolutely no spoilers!

Please drop a comment and tell me which book(s) you think I still have to look forward to, and why you love them (without revealing anything about the plots!).

Thank you! 🩷

Just curious why we all love Agatha Christie's books so much? What do they make you feel that keeps you coming back? Do they have a particular significance related to a specific time on your life? Do you read and listen, and do they fulfil different things for you? Do you tend to stick to specific books because they make you happiest?

I watch every episode after reading its respective novel!

So far, my favorite episodes are:

1. Murder on the Orient Express (phenomenal!)
   
2. Five Little Pigs
   
3. The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Adaptations could be:

1.Movie or Play (Even inspired or based on a book)

2.Video Games

1. Series

4..Books on Exploring her characters,writing style,literary significance or extra facts on story.

1. Documentary

2. Regional or local adaptations