#my agatha christie rereading project

[kattahj]

My Agatha Christie Re-Reading Project, #49: 4.50 from Paddington

Full disclosure: I actually re-read this back in spring, but never got around to writing a review, and then I stalled on Ordeal by Innocence and got swamped by other things and... well. Here we are, half a year later.

It's not because I don't like this book, either. On the contrary, it's one of my favourites, largely due to the presence of Lucy Eylesbarrow. Out of all of Christie's one-book heroines, she's probably my favourite (though Frankie Derwent is a strong contender).

Lucy's of course a bit too good to be true. She's such an efficient housekeeper families fall over themselves to employ her, she's a gifted mathematician, and she charms every man in the house – but she also charms the reader so thoroughly that you accept it all.

Well. I'm not entirely sure that housekeepers made more money than mathematicians even in Christie's time, but I take it as Christie's continued grumping that help is too expensive and hard to get. :-)

The rest of the cast are Christie's standard well-off and quarrelsome family. Perhaps the closest comparison is Hercule Poirot's Christmas, and I would say on the whole, 4.50 does a bit better with similar character types. It's fun to see them interact, and the two men who are the most romantically interested in Lucy are both rather appealing in different way. (The book is never clear on who she chooses, though TV's Marple went with the – also possible and quite appealing – third option.)

As for Miss Marple herself, she takes a bit of a backseat role in this one, but as always, she's a delight when she appears.

But of course, the center of any Christie (under that name) is the mystery. The concept of the murder seen on a passing train is inventive and engaging, and Mrs. McGillicuddy makes for a fun POV character for that bit. The story as it progresses works pretty well too, but it should be noted that this book is pretty light on clues. All About Agatha claimed there were hardly any, but I don't think that's quite true. They're just hard to pick up on, and even a seasoned Christie probably won't figure this one out on the first try.

Still, consider the following:

Who is a suspect?

Who is not treated as a suspect, but is also heavily involved in the case and has a potential opportunity to commit the murder?

What is actually going on, rather than what seems like it should be going on?

Is there anything that's treated as fact even though only one person said it?

How are the following murders committed? Who would have the opportunity?

And a bit of a spoiler: What is the significance of Anna Stravinska's old colleague mentioning that she claimed to be married to an Englishman?

That gives you a sporting chance, though by no means any guarantees!

So on the whole (and admitting that I'm rating with a fair bit of nostalgia), my verdict is 4/5.

[greycappedjester]

hello! it's been a few years since i asked anything, i religiously read your cardsverse years ago! i was rereading the series and remebered you had a tumblr LMAO. i wanted to ask if you had any plans to continue the series or if you've moved on from that part of your life, since it's been a long time since then. wishing you the best! (p.s. even after all these years and all of the fics i've read, this series still holds it's spot as my favorite) 💗

Hello, thank you!

Yep, I do have plans to continue the cardverse series. Right now, I'm just waiting until a few of my other current projects are finished.

The next story is eitehr going to be:

1.) a flashback novella about the Hearts Civil War (main characters: Oikawa and Iwaizumi)

2.) An Agatha Christie style whodunnit. Basic summary: Represenatives from each of the kingdoms are invited to Nohebi for a feast. However, for one, it's their last meal. After a Nohebi dignitary is found dead and the Ace of Spades is killed, it's up to Tsukishima and Hinata to figure out who the real killer is. The problem is...it seems like everyone has a motive.

....I got into an Agatha Christie movie phase a few months ago and the Cardverse plot came into my head before I could stop it. It should be a real fun story.

[benoitblanc]

arwen's read in 2024!

grad school applications kicked my total new book count down 20 books from what it usually is but i was trying. i also reread the entire leviathan series, the entire percy jackson series, the entire hunger games series, multiple agatha christies, multiple fredrik backmans, the book thief, if we were villains, and the complete calvin and hobbes, among others, so i wasn't totally slacking. here's hoping 2025 is more bookish. sigh

the ballad of songbirds and snakes by suzanne collins (★★★★★)

coraline... listen it was january. from a completely objective pov it does get four stars. however i unfortunately would not endorse a reread (★★★★☆)

the secret of life by howard markel (★★★★★)

the martian by andy weir (★★★★★)

the devil in the white city by erik larson (★★★☆☆)

all systems red by martha wells (★★★★☆)

maus by art spiegelman (it seems disrespectful to rate this, but it was excellent and i'd highly recommend it)

the long way to a small angry planet by becky chambers (★★★★☆)

romeo and juliet by william shakespeare (★★★★☆)

the merchant of venice by william shakespeare (★★☆☆☆)

the singer's gun by emily st. john mandel (★★★★☆)

a crack in creation by jennifer doudna and sam sternberg (★★★★★)

the color of magic by terry pratchett (★★★★☆)

slaughterhouse five by kurt vonnegut (★★★★☆)

troilus and cressida by william shakespeare (★★★☆☆)

a brief history of time by stephen hawking (★★★★☆)

project hail mary by andy weir (★★★★★)

all's well by mona awad (★★★★☆)

the familiar by leigh bardugo (★★★★☆)

in the lives of puppets by tj klune (★★★★☆)

everyone on this train is a suspect by benjamin stevenson (★★★★☆)

labyrinth's heart by ma carrick (★★★★★)

the man who died twice by richard osman (★★★★☆)

the bullet that missed by richard osman (★★★★☆)

the last devil to die by richard osman (★★★★★)

the ministry of time by kaliane bradley (★★★★★)

the life and crimes of agatha christie by charles osborne (★★★★★)

a murder is announced by agatha christie (★★★★☆)

the sentence by louise erdrich (★★★★☆)

the midnight library by matt haig (★★★★☆)

beartown by fredrik backman (★★★★★)

us against you by fredrik backman (★★★★★)

[fancyfeathers]

I am so behind in my Ao3 stories and my other long projects, I need to get back to those…

But all I want is to read and reread gothic horror literature, I just got a really pretty copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray and a copy of assorted works by mainly Edgar Allen Poe and I just want to binge read them. Then also I am buying a hard copy book collection of Agatha Christie’s works from a local collector so I want to read those to.

We also got our house redone so that our extra bedroom contents to our office and we made it look like an only Victorian library, it was an engagement/future wedding gift from my parents.

It’s the vibes, I want to feel like a librarian with secrets.

[being-of-rain]

I've been in a podcasts and video games mood for a while, but I think it's time to try and change back to reading and writing, because I've been doing far too little of both. So today I decided to spend some time finishing a few books.

I finished reading All Flesh Is Grass, the Time Lord Victorious novel that I put down... more than 18 months ago. Whoops. I couldn't be bothered starting from the start again so I just finished it. Una McCormack has a really wonderful way with words, I highlighted a lot of phrases I liked or made me laugh, such as the Great Vampires' Coffin Ship being described "like sailing through space in a velvet fridge." But while having Eight, Nine, and Ten together is very cool, I'm not sure the book captured the Doctors with its dialogue. And there was way too many paragraph breaks and cutting between scenes, often several on a page. On the whole these issues made me think the story would've been better as a script for an audio, but I think overall I enjoyed the Time Lord Victorious novels more than other people. Now that I've finished them, I'm going to finish listening to all the TLV audios, and consider myself done with the project. And when I feel like I have a bit more free time, I'll move on to Doom's Day. On the whole I think I'm less interested in it than I was with TLV, but it is nice to see that they took feedback from TLV onboard by restricting Doom's Day to a limited, ordered series rather than a sprawling chaotic web of stories. As much as I was amused by the sprawling chaotic web.

I also finished my reread of The Mysterious Mr Quin by Agatha Christie. I think it's definitely not some of Christie's best writing or cleverest mysteries, but it's still one of my favourites because of Mr Quin and Mr Satterthwaite's relationship. There needs to be a TV adaptation of the characters that can mix and match bits of the short stories and include all of the really emotional parts. Much more so than Christie's other protagonists, you could get really stylised TV with Mr Quin.

I read some 2006 Doctor Who short stories in my continuing project to refine a history of the Master's timeline. I've been consuming so much Master content recently, I really hope that I can pull all the fun facts I've learnt together into some kind of video eventually. I don't know how, but it'll be a good opportunity to learn some new creative skills!

I have so many novels and books on my to-read list, of course including the EDAs, which embarrassingly I haven't touched for a few years now, but I took a blood oath to someday finish in their entirety. But I think my next book might be yet another Doctor Who one, the 1999 Past Doctor Adventure Divided Loyalties, because it includes both (dubious) Master lore, and The Toymaker.

[rillabrooke]

For the reading tag: 3, 8 & 25 :) 📚

3. what were your top five books of the year?

i just answered this here, but here's the list including rereads! 1. a tale of two cities - charles dickens* 2. dracula - bram stoker 3. the great divorce - c.s. lewis 4. the martian - andy weir* 5. murder on the orient express - agatha christie * rereads

8. did you meet any of your reading goals? which ones?

i will reach my reading goal of 20 books tomorrow as my reread of around the world in 80 days is about to finish (and i'm currently reading another book i'll finish by the end of the year). i attempted to read dracula last year through dracula daily, but i just couldn't keep up. really happy i got through it (and kept up) this year! also really happy with finishing the a tale of two cities reread/annotation project. took forever and a half, but it was wonderfully rewarding.

25. what reading goals do you have for next year?

also answered (differently) here and here. i've been saying this for at least two years now, but this coming year, i will read the hobbit! (keep me accountable, y'all. this is getting ridiculous.)

-

end-of-year book ask

[cartograffiti]

August '24 reading diary

Lots of novellas and lots of fantasy this month, mostly continuing series!

Sheine Lende, the prequel to Darcie Little Badger's Elatsoe, was just wonderful. "Shane" is a Lipan Apache teenager in the 70s in an alt Earth setting with fairy rings and animal ghost magic. Shane helps her mother run a search and rescue operation, but when her mother vanishes while searching for a pair of missing siblings, Shane steps up to find all three with the help of her friends and family, no matter where in the world, or beyond it, they've been transported. Little Badger writes with a lot of beauty, effective emotion, and specificity in characters and worldbuilding. I wolfed it down.

Novella o'clock started with Seas and Geetings by Sierra Simone and Julie Murphy. They've been doing a series together of books about people in entertainment falling in love through the social hub of a producer who makes both porn and feel-good Christmas movies for a cypher of the Hallmark Channel. The mains of this novella are a bit peripheral to that, the best friend of one main (a lifestyle brand goddess) and the bodyguard of another. Lots of fun, they manage to be both a power couple and very messy, it's screwball comedy and they're obsessed with each other in a fun way. I think I would have gotten more out of it if I understood more of the Twilight jokes in the plotline of a parody musical being staged on the cruise ship, and it took a while for me to warm up to the sex scenes because mommy kink does nothing for me, but intellectually I really appreciate it in an f/f book.

A very long book: Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves, a cryptic, sometimes dense, horror novel about... Well, it's about a family in Virginia that discovers their new house keeps gaining rooms, and doors into a seemingly endless labyrinth, and it's also about the history of the home videos they took there, a blind man who wrote a manuscript analyzing the film, and a young tattoo apprentice who analyzes that. Some of the text exhausted me with the sheer volume of citations (I think mostly or entirely fictitious) and self-analysis between the different layers of the narrative, and I was a lot more interested in the house than anything else. The unusual formatting completely worked for me, though, with pages of text placed to physically enhance the experience, sometimes forcing me to rotate the book. I can see why it has a large following of fan analysts, and I'm glad to have formed my own impression of it!

Two Penric & Desdemona novellas from this year that I hadn't gotten my hands on yet, Demon Daughter and Penric and the Bandit. Excellent new installments dealing with the problems of very young sorcerers and very young demons (paired together accidentally, naturally), and Pen and Des doing a little fetch quest with a soft-hearted criminal who doesn't realize he's not the one with the upper hand. You can read these chronologically or in pub order, but either way, not starting here.

A really solid disappointment this month in Faebound by Saara El-Arifi. I'd been interested in her books for a while, but I won't be picking up any others now. This was inoffensive, but remarkably predictable, and the characters in their late 20s and early 30s consistently read to me as people 10 years younger. It was also imho far too long for the amount of plot.

I was also very minorly disappointed in The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Older. This is the second Mossa and Pleiti mystery about Holmes and Watson-ish girlfriends in space, and I liked this case, but the personal storyline was about Pleiti feeling insecure in their rekindled relationship, which I didn't find as fun as book 1.

Picked another Agatha Christie to read at random, in the ongoing project to read/reread all her stuff. This one was By the Pricking of My Thumbs, a particularly creepy Tommy and Tuppence case in which they try to hunt down an acquaintance of a recently deceased aunt, only to be drawn into retirement home gossip, organized crime, cold cases of murdered children, a quest for a location in a painting and its artist, and a secret room. Not in my top tier of Christies, but very fun.

And two more of the very silly and very scary cosmic horror detective adventures about Whyborne & Griffin! This time Fallow, which is about fungus horror (yay! yippee!) in Kansas, exploitation of people who hit rock bottom, and homophobia; and Undertow, which is another f/f novella about Whyborne's secretary Maggie having an adventure with Persephone the fish-woman while they're away. It's about whaling and xenophobia and murder, but it's also very much about monsterfucking, and JL Hawk had the vision to make in monsterfucking from both women's perspective, which is simply correct and ideal, thank you.

[the-commonplace-book]

tag game - tag 9 people you want to get to know better

I was tagged by: @runawaymun "want to get to know better" as if we haven't been best friends for almost two decades

Favourite colour: Purple! Especially eggplant and lavender

Last song: the Ruined Temple set from the background music channel Blue Turtle (can't recommend this channel enough! their music is so good for writing and/or dnd campaign vibes)

Currently reading: I've been going back and forth between Partners in Crime by Agatha Christie and a reread of The Vampire Countess by Paul Féval, père

Last movie: Miraculous Awakening and I've had Miraculous brainrot all week thanks to it

Sweet/spicy/savoury: Find you a cuisine that can do all three! (Indian food). But honestly all three? I like variety. Though between bitter and sweet I think I'd choose something bitter. I don't have much of a sweet tooth and food/drinks that are too sweet make me a little sick.

Currently working on: The And the Stars Shine the Same podfic, planning for the Agatha Christie audiobook series, Stormlight Archive characters with Miraculouses art, and very veeeerrrry slowly working on the next chapter of my WHF fic and a couple original fiction writing projects. It's all snail pace all the way baby

No-Pressure tags: anyone who wants to really! if you're reading this, I'm tagging you!

[the---hermit]

My small collection of heavily annotated dystopic novels ( The only one which is missing annotations is The Road by McCarthy, which I read in highschool and I should totally reread).

20|09|2022

Today I have finished a first draft of the inroduction and the conclusoon of my thesis. So now I am officially done with the first draft of the thesis. I have nothing left to do until the professor sends me her corrections so that I can edit everything. The fact that I still have stuff to do to be done but that I cannot do it is already turning me crazy so I really hope she'll answer to me. If by the end of today she won't write to me I'll send her an email to send in the intro and conclusion and to ask her what I am supposed to do now.

Productive things I did today:

Finished a frist draft of the introduction and conclusion of my thesis

Started working on a new crocheting project ( I am trying to make a cardigan but I have no idea if I have the skills)

Got the second to last document I need to upload to send in the request for my graduation

Self care things I did today:

Read first thing in the morning (currently reading The Last Seance by Agatha Christie, which is proving to be slower than expected)

Continued the audiobook of The Ocean At The End Of The Lane by Neil Gaiman which I am adoring

Crocheting!

[blamebrampton]

Unpacking my life into New House and I have A Lot of books. So I have a project. I am going to Read the Collection, focusing on books I have never read (more than I would like to admit) or have forgotten or felt needed a reread. In theory, I will record them here. In actuality, I have the attention span of a vague vole, so who knows.

To begin! Agatha Christie: An Autobiography. Published Weldon By Mail 1991. Found on a street corner in Marrickville. Never before read.

I am a big believer in street books, but usually I find them in street libraries or perched on fences, often with a chirpy note. This one was found literally on the street. To the point I left notes on a nearby pole and at the nearby bus stop in case someone had lost it running for a bus. I can only assume the many typos in this edition or the very small text infuriated someone to the point they flung it out of their lives and into mine.

Agatha Christie is the best selling fiction writer of all time and her books still stand up as mysteries. I’d always found her interesting: the disappearance, the second marriage to the young archaeologist, the enormous success, but I confess I knew little about the facts of her life in detail. Having read these 454 pages, I still don’t know an enormous amount about the facts of her life past her teen years, but I know her a lot better.

Written over 15 years (begun when she was 60), the book is extraordinarily detailed on her childhood and young adulthood and has some good details about her work on archaeological digs in later years, but skips entirely over some significant parts of her life. The famous disappearance is hand-waved. Her career is reduced to snippets: a shortish section on selling her first stories, another on changing publishers, then a slightly longer piece on writing plays and one’s ability to direct the royalties as gifts. We learn vastly more about her favourite childhood nurses and governesses. In terms of Answering Questions, it is less than ideal, but in terms of giving you a sense of the woman, it’s remarkable.

It is very much of its time and I would flag that there is some really shocking casual racism in parts, though coupled with genuine affection for many of the same people in individual who she dismisses as groups. One thing I found interesting was that, despite wincing at antisemitism in some of her novels (mostly those written early in her career, where it was sadly commonplace in British public thought), she is furious at the rise of Naziism in her autobiography. Not just at the impacts of the war, but at the awfulness of antisemitism becoming a way of life for so many Germans and the vicious cruelty faced by so many Jews. And she never remembers in the text that she herself thought not wholly differently. But, reading up afterwards, I learned that she instructed her American publishers to remove the worst from her earlier books. Still, as Gillian Gill put it, “Christie’s anti-Semitism had always been of the stupidly unthinking rather than the deliberately vicious kind. As her circle of acquaintances widened and she grew to understand what Nazism really meant for Jewish people, Christie abandoned her knee-jerk anti-Semitism. What is more, even at her most thoughtless and prejudiced, Christie saw Jews as different, alien, and un-English, rather than as depraved or dangerous – people one does not know rather than people one fears.” (from https://forward.com/culture/458050/so-what-did-agatha-christie-really-think-of-jews/)

The standout memories of the book are her love for her youth in Torquay, where she was a happy child in a house she loved. These themes recur and become the lenses through which so much of her life is seen. She wishes only for her daughter to be a happy child, she wants only for all to have a safe home, whether they are in Devon or Blitz London or Syria or Iraq. Although there are only glimpses as to her writing methods and the finding of ideas (her success is barely mentioned until the record run of The Mousetrap, save in having the funds to buy more houses and complaints about taxation), many writers will find it reassuring to know that she, too, often sat on ideas for years until they grew into a story. A strange but intriguing book and I thank whoever let it go!

[kattahj]

My Agatha Christie re-reading project, #61: Passenger to Frankfurt

I'm grateful to Agatha Christie for mid-career sticking two books in a vault to be opened after her death, because it means I have something to look forward to as I wade through this nonsense.

Christie wrote a few different conspiracy thrillers. None of them are good, and this is the worst of the lot, for a few different reasons. 

1. It is stupid.

It is an attempt at political analysis of "today's youth", penned by an 80-year-old who can't tell the difference between the Third World and the Third Reich. It throws Communists, Anarchists, Nazis, Black Power, university protests, drug users, and free sex into a general pot of "youth dissent" that will be used by nefarious people for nefarious purposes. By the end we get some vague science mumbo jumbo and a resolution that resolves absolutely nothing.

There are some statements in this book that could be seen as offensive, but the whole thing is such a mess that I can't even be offended, because I'm not convinced Christie was in possession of her full faculties when she wrote it. It's a bit like how I can't be offended by that scene in "IT" because Stephen King was clearly high when he wrote the whole book, except here, instead of drugs we have old age and potentially dementia.

2. It is boring.

You'd think with all the mwahaha melodrama thrown in, it'd at least be entertaining, but it's not. The main character for much of the book wears villain capes for the fun of it, willingly drinks drugged beer to help out a strange woman, and is deemed "not serious enough" for diplomacy, and yet he's more boring than the blandest of white-bread imperial builders than Christie has favoured in the past. The spies are boring. The Nazis are boring. The aging villainess in a castle on a mountain top is even boring (and mostly used for fatphobic comments).

3. It is badly written.

The repetitions, ramblings, and needless clarifications in the text are now at a level where they are getting truly irritating.

Some examples:

"Something was taped between two of the pages. Taped with adhesive tape."

On the next page;

"He wasn't likely to see her again and he was annoyed.

Yes, he was annoyed, and he didn't like being annoyed."

And a bit further into the book:

"The other third of trouble had been caused by those politicians who were unable to conceal the fact that although duly elected by democratic governments, they had been unable to conceal their remarkably poor powers of judgment, common sense and, in fact, any noticeable brainy qualities."

It's just so bad in every respect, and I hope that no-one curious to try Christie picks up this book by accident.

Verdict (no surprise) is 1/5.

Next up is Nemesis, which I don't remember as being that bad.

[evilblot]

For the ship bingo: Pete/Trudy (back at you :D), Phantom Blot/Makandra (from the Darkenblot saga), Basil Blackspot/Candy (the girl from the Estate a Green Pond).

Sorry for the late reply, also you owe me a new pair of kneecaps for these asks sjsjskakkaka

Pete and Trudy

God I love them. SO. MU C H.

Especially Trudy, and if I didn't like and respect their relationship so much, I'd probably be shipping my sona with her sksksksk <//3

Anyway, I completely agree with the analysis you made for my ask, I just want to add that one, I gotta reread the Cronache dalla Frontiera because I remember absolutely nothing about it aside from that cute robot dude sjsksk, and two I don't really enjoy when they (as in the Topolino writers) keep recycling Pete as Mickey's love rival when it comes to conquering Minnie's heart in all their stories, even the ones with Trudy's involved (unless it adds more layers or some nice dynamics to their established relationship but even if so I'm picky).

I mean, do y'all need a rival for the new and exciting rodent love intrigues? Mortimer is right here, so come get yo nasty rat boi and leave piccioncini alone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PB and Makandra

Have you ever seen a dog trying to eat a lemon? That's me while attempting to write a coherent reply without frothing at the mouth too much sjsksk

Despite understanding what the casual reader may see between these two, I only see a partnership that's nothing more than blind fanaticism.

Makandra has the zealot mentality, as in she's ready to sacrifice everything to favor the Blot who, in her eyes is the "Supreme". A master, and fundamentally her owner, and despite the apparent respect and concern he seems to have for her, she's nothing but a disposable pawn he won't hesitate destroying the moment she's no longer useful to him, and while she appears to share the same ideals, I'm actually convinced he manipulated her (as well as many others) to believe so, but that's p much it. She's here to help him, not to make a difference in the grand scheme of things he and Nemo are working on.

I know y'all see a man and a woman with a significant height difference working well together and go wild, but nah lads. Maybe they fuck sometimes, between working on a prototype and whatnot, but I can't really imagine them building an actual relationship together, nope.

This is the hill I decided to die on and y'all can't change my mind.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Basil and Candy

Of all the questionable ships I've came across in Goofy Reporter (both fanon AND canon), this is the only one that doesn't make me cringe. Also keep Agatha Christie's fursona away from me before I sink my teeth in her jugular and start chewing until there's nothing left to bite.

I'm a sucker for the childhood friends growing up together, falling in the love but then having to leave to follow their own path only to meet and rediscover how the feelings they had are still as strong as they were back in the old days. Also Basil needs someone to remind him there is more to it than vile money, someone who makes him rediscover his humanity and mostly that childhood innocence he had to bury under layers of cynicism and coldness to survive in the unforgiving world he was thrown into, and Candy sure does fit the role.

Maybe I'm projecting a wee bit too much, but still that's my opinion ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

[spaceorphan18]

What are all the projects you’re working on?

All the Projects, Nonny, lol 

Okay, well since you asked... 

The Fic Writing: 

There are two that I’m primarily focused on... 

1. 99 Perspectives on a Single Love Story -- which I’ve decided to parcel out a little at a time.  It’s a big project, that I could easily burn out on.  

2. Chasing Pavements - which is almost coming up on a year.  I need to buckle down and just finish it.  I have all the chapters outline, it’s just a matter of focus.  I also feel really bad I haven’t updated in a while, especially since it’s currently on a cliffhanger. 

There’s one I’m writing writing as well as these two, but am not posting until it’s finished.  However, since it’s just in my head, I’ve been kinda picking away at it, too.  It’s called Head Over Feet, and it’s a reunion fic set in the future when Klaine are in their mid-30s.  And it might be my favorite thing I’ve ever been writing. 

There are also a few projects I’d like to get back to when these are done -- One being The Spaces In-Between, which is Kurt’s story in canon and two, the fic based on my Final Season sketch that I wrote a few years ago.  I wrote the first couple of chapters, and really like it -- I think I’ll wait until that’s finished before posting as well.  

And, I have numerous one-shots and smaller ideas written down just in case I ever feel like writing those.  We’ll see!  

The Fic Blog: 

The Author Spotlights are still going on - on TDBfic, and those take some time to put together.  

Plus, I’m trying to figure out ways to help keep it active, as well as getting ready to set up a Summer Exchange for people to participate in (and am hoping to get some help in running that).  

Meta: 

You guys ask a lot of questions, which I love! But I don’t always get to.  Some of them take some time to answer, I have a few very old ones that I haven’t replied to yet, just because I know they’re going to take some time.  I also have to set up my queue, which sometimes means digging into old posts and seeking things out to fill the space.  And, there are things in my likes that need responses, and I’m always behind on that -- like, posts that I want to make replies to, or memes people have tagged me in.  

Meanwhile...  There are the Rankings 2.0.  I know I sometimes pause for days on end, and I’ve been griping a lot, but I’m not kidding when I say watching the show this way has been incredibly fascinating.  I now have a real understanding of things that bug me about the show.  In about ten episodes, we’ll be getting to episodes I like more than I don’t, and the tenor of discussion will change.  I’m looking forward to being positive about it again, lol  

There are also two projects that I haven’t posted about, but I’m working on... 

1. The Grey Project - which is a deeper analysis of ATOG’s sequel Grey.  It’s something I’ve wanted to do for years, and it’s a follow up to the analysis we did on the TDB Podcast.  (As an aside -- I think I want to visit the older fics on my master fic rec list, because I haven’t read any of that in years.)  

2. Glee Music Retrospective -- where I look at all the music in the show.  I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, too, so I’m finally doing it.  

The Book Blog and Marvel Movie Night: 

Most of this is non-Glee related stuff.

The Book Blog is just a way for me to keep track of things I’m reading, and share with you guys new recommendations for published works.  I’m also rereading all of the Agatha Christie novels (because I love them) and working through X-Men comics (which I’ve been wanting to do, and tried starting a handful of times).  All of this is a labor of love.  

And then there’s the Marvel Movie Nights -- where I watch a Marvel movie... all of them... including non-MCU ones.  I kind of wanted to see everything, even the terrible ones, just because.  I’m about half way through the list, and just getting into the MCU, which of course is my favorite.  

Other (mostly boring adult stuff): 

Of course, real life things are a constant.  There’s work (and now that I’m a manager(ish) I have more obligations there; cleaning my house - a never ending project; prepping meals; making sure I’m working out; doing needed errands, etc, all that fun stuff that takes up time.  As well as making sure I’m doing some kind of socialization and doing things just for fun -- like watching TV shows or playing video games.  

And of course, there’s my dearly beloved, neglected child - my original novel.  It’s called The Legend of Melaynia; it’s a fantasy, and I’ve been working on the world building for twenty years.  I am no Tolkien, but it’s been my love, and at some point, I would like to actually focus on it.  

Because I love organizing, I bought a white board that helps me keep everything straight -- and today, I think I came up with a schedule that will help me not feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff I’m working on.  

[shauncartoons]

Reading Resolutions for 2020

    With the start of a new year comes new resolutions to go along with it. The main ones I am willing to share include being far more productive than I have in recent years along with some reading resolutions after getting back into it towards the end of 2018. I came across this post shortly before the start of 2019 and was impressed with the results after trying my own version of it. Because of that, I will be doing it again this year and see how it goes. I will try to post my success with my resolutions throughout the year.

Read more books from my personal library and avoid getting as much

    I’ve been terrible at this for some time, not just with books but with video games as well as I’ve amassed quite a back catalog of both especially over the last few years through a combination of sales, library rentals, and getting hundreds of the free books over at Project Gutenberg that catch my interest. I did not realize just how bad it had gotten until I started organizing both my physical and ebook collections (mainly Kindle) over the last few weeks or so. My goal is to focus on getting through what I have and limit what I rent, buy, or download. My primary goal for 2020 is to finish the large collection of old Star Wars books I got from a relative a few years ago (all from before the 2014 reboot) along with a few that have been sitting on my shelf for well over a decade, waiting to be read. Other books that have been sitting on my shelf include Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

Read books that I’ve been meaning to get to

    Along with going through my personal library, I will try to get to more books I’ve been meaning to get to while adding as little to the list as possible. My main goal in this area is to finish Agatha Christie’s Poirot series. I also have some fantasy and science fiction books to get to such as a few works by H.G. Wells along with some of the remaining works of L. Frank Baum that I have yet to get to. I’ve also been meaning to some of the works of Stephen King as I have yet to read any of his book and will try to read at least one of them this year, probably The Shining.

Read more non-fiction

    I’ve had an interest in history for some time, though I’ve been terrible at getting to books related to it. One of my goals for 2020 is to get through some books I’ve gathered related to a few areas of history that interest me with my primary area of focus being the Middle Ages along with Ancient Egypt and Rome along with folklore from various countries which is helpful as a fantasy author. Recently I’ve gotten into art and music history, so I’ll try to find books related to those areas as well if I can.

Reread books

    I found it is good to reread books I’ve read before, especially if it has been many years since I’ve last red them. One book that is always I have read almost every year for over fifteen years is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and with its 120th anniversary coming up, I am really looking forward to it. The Hobbit will probably end up on the reading list as well this year as that is another favorite.

Read books that are part of the series

    While many of the books above are part of a series, there are some I’ve wanted to try or at least continue, mainly older ones, though I am open to trying out some newer ones that catch my interest, particularly in the fantasy and science fiction area. My main goals are to get to the first few books in the Wheel of Time series along with getting back to the Song of Ice and Fire series and the first book in the Xanth series.

    Will I achieve all of these goals throughout 2020? Who knows? I will, however, make an honest effort to do so and will see how it goes at various points throughout the year along with a reflection at the end of it. Until next time.

[riley1cannon]

10 most read authors From @books-on-a-wire‘s post, there is a feature in Goodreads which shows your most read authors (as shelved in your collections).

Rex Stout 46 Yep, this would be from when I ploughed through his Nero Wolfe & Archie Goodwin books, many years ago now. I did recently read a pastiche by Robert Goldsborough, Murder in E Minor, which did a good job of capturing the feel of the books as best I remember. It has me tempted to pick out a few of the old books and revisit. My only other contact with Nero and Archie in recent memory was the TV series starring Timothy Hutton.

Elizabeth Peters 29 OK, if you add the seven books written under the name Barabara Michaels, plus her two non-fiction Egyptology books written under her real name of Barbara Mertz, this number jumps to 38. The bulk of that 29 is from a couple of years ago, when I managed to read through her entire Amelia Peabody series. (And having done that, a project for the new year may be revisiting that series as well, but at a slower pace.) The rest would be the Vicky Bliss books, a couple of Jacqueline Kirby’s, and some standalones.

Ellis Peters 24 Another one of fond memory. Just took the last Cadfael book off the shelf and was astonished to see it was published twenty-four years ago this month. It doesn’t seem that long. It’s starting to look like 2019 will be the year of the rereads... Hmm. But 24... Okay, that has to include one collection of short stories, another gorgeous hardcover that contains the text of the first two Cadfael novels, along with a section of text and photos related to the world of the books, and one book from her other mystery series... Aha! The George Felse one! (Had to look it up.) Throw in her A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury, written as Edith Pargeter, and this number gets bumped up to 25.

Agatha Christie 22 This one is a mix of rereading, and encountering some of other of her books for the first time, and is of recent origin. Didn’t get to too many this year, just Sleeping Murder (unless I sneak in one or two before the end of the year), but it’s been fun to go back and rediscover her. She holds up much better than first anticipated. Thanks has to go to the television adaptations, especially Poirot and Marple, and that 10th Doctor episode about Agatha’s infamous disappearance, for bringing me back into the Christie fold.

Martha Grimes 17 This is all the Richard Jury and Melrose Plant mysteries. Except it should be 19. Maybe I never recorded a couple of them? Will have to go and check later. And there are still four or five more to go. I like the first batch of the series better than some of the later books, but the characters are always such good company that flaws in the stories can be forgiven. A few of those first books have been reread so many times they’re starting to fall apart.

Douglas Preston 17 First, that should be Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. I haven’t as yet read any of their solo novels. Second, and I had to check this, I cannot believe that number is real. (It is.) The bloom has gone off the rose and all that, but I can remember when it was a thrill to get my hands on the latest Agent Pendergast. 

John D. MacDonald 15 This would be the Travis McGee series, which I haven’t visited in quite awhile now. Someday I will resume and get back to where I started ages and ages ago, The Dreadful Lemon Sky, and then proceed to the last books in the series. No idea how Travis holds up in the 21st century, but hopefully any of his 1960s ‘sins’ aren’t so glaring they can’t be forgiven. 

Janet Evanovich 15 It kind of floors me that the Stephanie Plum series is up to twenty-five books at this point, not counting some sidetrip books that I never got around to having a look at. Make no mistake, when I first picked up One For the Money back in the day, I was happy to get on the Stephanie Plum train and stay there for a long time. Sometime around book eight or nine, though, the magic started to fade, and I hopped off for good at book fifteen. It was a treat while it lasted, and some of those first books got multiple readings, so that’s in no way a bad thing. 

Mary Stewart 14 Yes! Okay, four of these would be her Arthurian trilogy + her Mordred novel, where she did the impossible and made me sympathize with him. Then I discovered she had also written a batch of gothic romance/romantic suspense novels, and could not get my hands on them fast enough. There are still a couple of titles missing from my collection, and I have yet to give Thunder On the Right a second chance, but she is one of those authors that is as close to a sure bet as you can get. 

Robert Crais 13 This would be his Elvis Cole & Joe Pike series of private eye thrillers. I’ve been reading this one in a roundabout fashion for awhile now. Started with the first two, The Monkey’s Raincoat and Stalking the Angel, and then jumped ahead to L.A. Requiem, and fell into this pattern of reading one of the older titles, and then one of the newer ones, and finally got caught up in the timestream last year (although I’m a few recent books behind now). The climaxes are usually action-packed shoot-’em-ups that I tend to skim through, but that’s my only complaint. Well, and that we never get enough of the cat who loves Elvis and Joe and hates everyone else.

Honorable mentions: Charles Todd, the mother and son team behind the Ian Rutledge mysteries (shell-shocked Scotland Yard detective just back from the Great War, haunted by the battlefield and one particular soldier). Haven’t read their Bess Crawford books yet, but hope to soon. Victoria Holt & Nora Roberts, at nine books each. Victoria, alas, does not hold up well, but I’m still good with Nora. Rhys Bowen comes in with eight books; that would be four Molly Murphys, and four Lady Georgianas. I like Molly, but Lady Georgie is my favorite. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle also comes it at eight. And Amanda Quick, Dorothy Sayers, David Eddings, and Lauren Willig all clock in at six. Willig will soon be seven; and Amanda Quick/Jayne Ann Krentz is likely to increase by several volumes in the new year.

[neversixteenagain]

I've finally decided what to do my final project on for my serialized lit class! My first literary love, Agatha Christie! 3 of these will be rereads, which will hopefully make it easier to read so many books on top of my required readings! ... #bookstagram #bibliophile #bookworm #bookish #booknerd #booklover #bookaddict #booklr #book #books #read #reader #reading #bookphotography