Agatha Christie

this women represented. i really dont know much about her but im starting to dig in. my new entertainment weekly just came in and the cover story is about the new murder on the orient express that is coming out. great cast. a mystery movie right up my alley so i decided to read a bit about her.

en.wikipedia.org...

Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly 2 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works come third in the rankings of the world's most-widely published books,[4] behind only Shakespeare's works and the Bible. According to Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author – having been translated into at least 103 languages.[5] And Then There Were None is Christie's best-selling novel, with 100 million sales to date, making it the world's best-selling mystery ever, and one of the best-selling books of all time.[

any fans here? i have not read any of her books but i am going to start today.
im going to start with the orient express because the new movie is coming out. after that is there any recommendations on which i should pick up next?

I personally never cared for her works but they are classics none the less. And it doesn't hurt getting to that spot when every school in America at least has her works as required readings.

a reply to: JDeLattre89

Which versions of which works should be required? The original version of "And Then There Were None" is called "Ten Little N__gers" and every single reference to "soldier" in it is originally the n-word. Many countries still use variations of the original title and tone, including versions like "Diez Negritos" (the Spanish version). ETA: In fact, it was first censored as "Ten Little Indians" because that was deemed less offensive at the time.

So should we require the real version in schools or just the whitewashed & censored version? I personally don't want a single penny of my tax money going towards something like that. If people want to read that crap in their spare time, then good for them. But required reading for all school children? Yeah right.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

tough one for some i would imagine.

my stance

i dont care if my daughter reads the original version and would prefer that over some watered down version.
would i go so far as to want it to be required reading? probably not

im going to read that first up after orient express so i can get a feel for it

ive not read a single word of any of her books but context means a lot. curious now

thanks

a reply to: TinySickTears

It was from the late years of the "blackface" and "minstrel show" era & there was a poem or play by the same name before her book. There was an entire genre of music like that back then (HERE), so this was literally just another part of pop culture (though she obviously became uber successful from it).

You can probably guess how I feel about it, but I don't want it scrubbed from history. Instead, I want people to see what society really thought about my people without all of the whitewashing and revisionism. I've even told friends that today's "gangsta rap" is just the offspring of that time period's music, but you can imagine how heated the discussions would get.

a reply to: TinySickTears

Pretty much read every one of her books when I was a kid.
The woman was an absolute genius with devising murder plots and methods.

A new 'Orient Express' film would be great...as it has Hercule Poirot as the detective...but the movie has been done at least three times, that I know of.

originally posted by: IAMTAT
a reply to: TinySickTears

Pretty much read every one of her books when I was a kid.
The woman was an absolute genius with devising murder plots and methods.

A new 'Orient Express' film would be great...as it has Hercule Poirot as the detective...but the movie has been done at least three times, that I know of.

i know there was one from 74 with albert finny and lauren bacall

looking forward to this

Her books and the TV shows were all right. I would never buy one of her books, I tend to read things analytical or scientific or technical, I have little interest in her kind of writings. My wife likes her stuff. I'd rather spend time increasing output of an engine or revamping something to create a more powerful tool design. I used to build computers, but now it is cheaper to just buy one that does the job. I used to love removing spyware manually, but have lost interest in doing that now.

I wish I could get interest in those kind of books, but I can't. I do appreciate art and music, as long as I do not have to create it and just admire it.

originally posted by: rickymouse


I wish I could get interest in those kind of books, but I can't. I do appreciate art and music, as long as I do not have to create it and just admire it.

i know how you feel. ive been a pretty avid reader my whole life but i never read much fiction. i always stuck to non and bios and autos. was strange because i am also a huge movie buff so obviously i love fiction.
about 5 years ago i started picking up the fiction and now my shelves are about 50/50

and ricky what is your avatar? been meaning to ask you for a long time now....looks like # on a stick.
i must know

a reply to: TinySickTears

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a great place to start. Early entrance of Hercule Poirot and it was also ground-breaking in a way that's too 'spoiler' to mention. Either way, it's a short, fast read and has stood up very well like all classic fiction does.

I was born and grew up in the same town as her. She worked in the dispensary of the town's original hospital for a while and it was there that she gained her understanding of medicines and poisons.

It is difficult to fully estimate her contribution to literature and the crime fiction genre today as there are so many authors and styles. She was a true original and the town I was born in is rightly proud of the association.

a reply to: TinySickTears

I always see it as a skinny, sickly baby elephant clinging to a post, and always feel sad when I see it. (referring to Ricky's avatar)

I believe it's actually a rock, though.

a reply to: TinySickTears

files.abovetopsecret.com...

Here it is with the clay plug still in the marrow hole. You can see some of the grind marks in this picture from when someone ground it into whatever it is supposed to represent. Probably a wolf pup or who knows what, could even be an animal that is extinct. The legs could even be hair, it could be a crude indian head. Whomever carved it and knows for sure is long dead. I found it in the rocks I had thrown off when backfilling the house, I have no idea how deep it was originally, it was pushed off to the side by the bulldozer. I would say from what I remember that it was in the top two feet of the clay and soil, so it is probably less than a thousand or two years that someone carved it.

My location on top of the hill is probably an old ceremonial site, they said there will be lots of stuff buried here, I found quite a bit of little things, usually three or four in a bunch in the clay layer. I guess there would have originally been four, but some could have been bone artifacts and they deteriorate. The Indians told me it was ok to dig them up but I should not remove them from the area, they were considered gifts to the earth there. Indians traded rocks a lot, and they also stored seeds in homemade clay rocks. They told me this is probably not a burial sites, the rocks in rows under the ground lined paths. I wonder how many Indians tripped over those rocks in rows. The Indians also said the artifacts I am finding are probably older than the present indians living in this area, they do not match Ojibaway style except the ground stone tools I found which everyone seemed to do. Ground Diabase tools are old technology but the Indians still do some of this today in traditional tool making. There is no way to judge how old this stuff is, I have found nothing to tell how long ago it happened. I figure that once the springs that were coming out of the hill dried up, they moved their site. My well is in an underground river, the well is artesian to about four feet down, The streams still come out further down the hill, but only ones on top of the hill but the ones on top have now dried up..

Just interesting artifacts, they have no real value unless certified and that would cost nearly as much as they are worth if they were certified. On top of that, it is very bad luck to sell them according to the Indians. I may dig up some of the ones in four if I have to do some land work, then give them to the Indian kids. There are some interesting things in those buried treasures, I have one stone pipe that needs to be finished, it has one starter hole and was already put into the stream to coat it. It can now be finished. evidently it took years to finish simple things back then, anything that was to have fire in it had to be tempered in a stream or by the lake shore so it wouldn't explode.

a reply to: rickymouse

interesting.
thats very cool but im still seeing what i saw before.

at least now i know.

thanks man

a reply to: TinySickTears

I read most of her books. A great mystery writer. She created a mystery of her own when she disappeared in 1926 after a fight with her husband Archie. After a massive 11 day search she was located at a hotel in Yorkshire registered under the name of her husband's mistress.

There are many theories on why she disappeared (she claimed amnesia) but it looks like she either wanted to frame her husband or his mistress for her murder or she just wanted to get Archies attention hoping he would realize he did love her and reconsider leaving her.

In late 1926, Archie asked Agatha for a divorce. He was in love with Nancy Neele, who had been a friend of Major Belcher, director of the British Empire Mission, on the promotional tour a few years earlier. On 3 December 1926, the Christies quarrelled, and Archie left their house, Styles, in Sunningdale, Berkshire, to spend the weekend with his mistress at Godalming, Surrey. That same evening, around 9:45 pm, Christie disappeared from her home, leaving behind a letter for her secretary saying that she was going to Yorkshire. Her car, a Morris Cowley, was later found at Newlands Corner, perched above a chalk quarry, with an expired driving licence and clothes.[20][21]

She caused many people to search and worry over her well being when she was in a "spa hotel" the whole time. Nowadays i don't think the "amnesia" excuse would be acceptable. She obviously had a plan that did not work as well as it would have in one of her novels.

originally posted by: TinySickTears

originally posted by: IAMTAT
a reply to: TinySickTears

Pretty much read every one of her books when I was a kid.
The woman was an absolute genius with devising murder plots and methods.

A new 'Orient Express' film would be great...as it has Hercule Poirot as the detective...but the movie has been done at least three times, that I know of.

i know there was one from 74 with albert finny and lauren bacall

looking forward to this

Peter Ustinov was in another...although, David Suchet from the series is my all-time favorite Poirot.

David Suchet made Poirot his own. I cannot picture the character any other way and the supporting supporting cast were excellent. Sorry to keep doing this but a number of episodes were filmed in and around my hometown, as were some of the Miss Marple's with Joan Plowright in the main role. She also defined the role for me personally.
a reply to: IAMTAT

originally posted by: CulturalResilience
David Suchet made Poirot his own. I cannot picture the character any other way and the supporting supporting cast were excellent. Sorry to keep doing this but a number of episodes were filed in and around my hometown.
a reply to: IAMTAT

Agreed.
Same for Jeremy Brett in the role of Sherlock Holmes from the old BBC series.

Jeremy Brett was excellent as Holmes. Peter Cushing was also first rate. Have you ever seen the any of the first screen dramatisations starring Basil Rathbone? I always thought it was real pity that Peter Cushing never married Whoopi Goldberg.
a reply to: IAMTAT

originally posted by: CulturalResilience
Jeremy Brett was excellent as Holmes. Peter Cushing was also first rate. Have you ever seen the any off the first screen dramatisations starring Basil Rathbone? I always thought it was real pity that Peter Cushing never married Whoopi Goldberg.
a reply to: IAMTAT

LOL.
Rathbone WAS Holmes for me, as a kid watching the old films...Until Brett came along.
Nigel Bruce, for that matter...was also a great Watson for Rathbone...although, I, later, came to dislike the fact that he was portrayed as such a bumbling old fogey.