An Appreciation of Agatha Christie

I bought this at Murder and Mayhem at Hay on Wye in the Easter Holidays.  Although not a perfect read (the style at points wasn't great and it spent a long time on the negative sides of Agatha), it did get me thinking a lot about Agatha and her books and I felt a blog post was in order.  I started reading these at secondary school when my Ma put me on to them.  I started reading hers and Grampys and then I was away and would spend a lot of time in WH Smith and Waterstones in Watford looking at all the spines (I can still picture where the shelves were in the shops; they were both the bottom shelf so I would spend a lot of time on the floor!).  Somehow, I stopped with only about 10 to read, there are about 80.  I have occasionally looked out for them at charity shops and have now decided that I will only get them if they are in the same publishing series as most of the ones I bought.  They changed just as I was stopping reading them so I think I have one of a newer set. 

I bought a few while I was at uni and it was then that I realised I could no longer remember everything about all the stories.  And now I would say there are very few where I even remember who the murderer is.  Oh, now there's a challenge, I want to make that list.  Maybe as an appendix to this post.  I'm not sure how I feel about not being able to remember.  I remember conversations on the way to school with J. K. about rereading books and not doing it at the time.  And I remember Mum saying she never remembers the murderer so she could read and watch Morse numerous times.  I not distraught that I can't remember, and do feel it gives me more opportunities to enjoy them again, but it does seem a little of a brain failing.  Maybe I just have so much more in my brain now than I did as a teenager!

I started annotating the bibliography at the back whilst reading the book with ticks and crosses of the ones I should read.  I feel a may do an excel spreadsheet so that I can sort it in various ways.  Here comes geek time!! 

This also got me thinking a lot more about reading in general and I do want to share more on here about my reading diaries.  I would love a master copy here of all my diaries.  I'm sure I started a book diary post once upon a time which I could update and finally publish now!

Appendix 1 - Agatha Christie books off the top of my head where I can remember the villain.
Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Murder on the Orient Express
Death on the Nile
The Crooked House
And Then There Were None
A Murder is Announced - that was heavily written about in 'A Talent to Deceive' so I can't say how honestly I remember that!
Lord Edgeware Dies - but I did read that last week!

--> Appendix 2 - teehee!  Written 16/5/15  I completed my spreadsheet this week.  It took a surprisingly long time to type up.  I am looking forward to sorting it by different categories.  Not sure how best to display it on here...

Appendix 3 - 6/8/15 I have now compared my excel list with my list of books I wrote that I have when I was in Malvern.  So now here are a few more lists that I've sorted.

Here they are sorted by the ones that I still need to buy to complete my collection.  So hopefully I can refer to this if I am at a Charity shop.  I did also sort them by year, but I still can't find how to display a pdf on here so I have only done a screen shot here.