A new month and time for a new monthly prompt. I was probably not terribly creative when coming up with my monthly prompts--sticking with seasons and the usual monthly themes/holidays, but that doesn't mean I can't be creative when choosing a book to match the prompt. This month is is "an affair to remember", but in this case the "affair" is murder! Cue dramatic music, please. Maybe Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair at Styles will, in the end, still have something to do with a love affair (love gone awry perhaps, or a little jealousy maybe?)? I've been in the mood for a little something by Mrs. Christie. It has been far too long since she and I have collaborated.
This was her very first book and according to the blurb on the inside of the original dust jacket the impetus for writing the book: "This novel was originally written as the result of a bet, that the author, who had previously never written a book, could not compose a detective novel in which the reader would not be able to 'spot' the murderer, although having access to the same clues as the detective. The author has certainly won her bet, and in addition to a most ingenious plot of the best detective type she has introduced a new type of detective in the shape of a Belgian. This novel has had the unique distinction for a first book of being accepted by the Times as a serial for its weekly edition." Knowing how ingenious Agatha Christie's mysteries could be, I am looking forward to seeing what she comes up with on her first venture into the mystery genre. I think she may previously have written short stories or perhaps romances.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles was written during WWI and published in 1920. It introduces Hercule Poirot, who was a Belgian refugee of the Great War (ahh, so that is why he is Belgian). Styles is a great manor house in Essex (and I believe her last Poirot book has the same setting--to come full circle). The NYTBR was apparently sold since they gave a glowing review:
"Though this may be the first published book of Miss Agatha Christie, she betrays the cunning of an old hand... You must wait for the last-but-one chapter in the book for the last link in the chain of evidence that enabled Mr. Poirot to unravel the whole complicated plot and lay the guilt where it really belonged. And you may safely make a wager with yourself that until you have heard M. Poirot's final word on the mysterious affair at Styles, you will be kept guessing at its solution and will most certainly never lay down this most entertaining book."
With just a little over 200 pages this should be an easy, entertaining (and hopefully very distracting) read this month. I have to say, only two months in, I like this idea of a monthly prompt. Not only is it an 'excuse' to pick a book (mostly at whim), but it feels as though I am accomplishing some small reading goal I set out at the start of the year.
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Since I am trying to not let myself meander too much in my reading choices (and avoid a rash of new starts reading-wise, you know . . . a serious case of 'start-i-tis') I think I am going to do something I have noticed Stefanie has done in the past. I might just give a little sneak peek of posts to come. Best not to get too specific or detailed (knowing how much I change tack midstream), but a few books I want to read or finish or return to this month might help me actually do them? No, might actually help me do them!
I have not one but two Virago Modern Classics in progress at the moment and hope to finish both. Barbara Comyns, I have already decided, is one of my new great finds this year and I hope to read more by her. And I am excited to finally get back to Molly Keane's books.
Since I am already thinking about reading Virginia Woolf as my next classic author it is time to get on with (and don't think I am not enjoying the reread--I am--just too many choices when deciding what to pick up at any given moment) Jane Austen's Persuasion.
I AM going to get back to my Penguin Little Black Classics. They are shooting daggers at my from their box! The poor little books will not be ignored any longer!
I am still watching my mailbox for Emma Flint's new book, so I had best get on with my Norwegian mystery The Human Flies. I expect more bodies to begin dropping (per the title . . .).
My one struggle of a book at the moment is N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn, which I am reading for Caroline's Literature and War Readalong. And now that I click through to her post, I am relieved to see that I am not alone in feeling something of a reading challenge with it! I am happy to read it, it won a Pulitzer and it is a worthy read, but if I am really honest, it is a book I need to make myself reach for rather than one I enjoy losing myself in. Hopefully the February book will be a better fit for me.
Of course any book on my sidebar is fair game, but I do have a 'working list' of titles that I hope to finish this month. But expect to see more about these books this month in any case.