Suggestions for an Agatha Christie novel for my book group please!

[BaconAndAvocado]

I’ve never read any AC but always meant to!

I need to choose a book for book group and thought I would suggest something completely different to our usual fare.

Any suggestions for a good one please?

*LPW

Thanks all Christie aficionados.
I think I will go with Roger Ackroyd, although I do fancy reading Poirot’s Christmas myself right now!

One last question.....who is Wimsey?!

Love it! You know LPW will manage it tho. Strong Poison is sooo satisfying esp wrt the solution (I rather like the killer in 5 red herrings and also in MMA for example).

Lord Peter Wimsey in the books by Dorothy L Sayers. Same vintage as Christie but less well known Sadly.

And the title in question was a quotation from a well-known counting rhyme of the day - Christie didn't make it up.

Even within the last few decades, there has been a shift in how the N word and terms like P**i are regarded. They have always seen as offensive in my lifetime - and I am sure that they have always been foul for the people who got called those terms. But society as a whole didn't necessarily appreciate how demeaning and horrible they were.

And the meaning of the N word has evolved. If you read 19th century literature, it is often used in a neutral way by Europeans (though that is absolutely not to deny that most Europeans were racist - just that they weren't necessarily using the word to denigrate). Christie was writing in the 1920s so much closer to the 19th century than to us now.

It doesn't make sense to project our understanding of these issues now back on to the 1920s.

Yes, I am so old that I can remember the second title, which was obviously adopted once it was recognised that the N word was offensive. The I word then became problematic too, at which point they changed to And Then There Were None. I must have been an impressionable teenager, as when I read that the first time, aged about 14, I couldn't put it down, so it was very late when I finally finished it, and I remember feeling very apprehensive as I put the light out.

(Still easily spooked now. Never watch horror films.)

Yeah, I once made the mistake of starting The Hound of the Baskervilles, late on a winter's night in the West Country, while home alone...

I have to say I love your username. Lucy is probably one of my most favourite Christie characters. I wish she had based a few books on her.

I have to say I love your username. Lucy is probably one of my most favourite Christie characters. I wish she had based a few books on her

Why, thank you <blushes, but in a can-do sort of way>. Yes, she would have made a great recurring character. And, unlike Lady Peter Wimsey, she didn't need a man to get her out of trouble 😉

Yes I love your name too @MissLucyEyelesbarrow - seen you on other threads but this is the thread for you!

Harsh comment on Harriet tho at least once she DID get off, she forged her own way rather than falling into LPW's arms (which would have been tempting, I feel)

😁

And, unlike Lady Peter Wimsey, she didn't need a man to get her out of trouble

It was Miss Climpson and Miss Murchison who did most of the work in Strong Poison.

Loving this LPW fan club! In my real life no one has heard of him 😀

I've succeeded in making DLS fans of 50% of my children, one of whom rereads her fairly regularly and almost applied to Balliol just because of Wimsey. And recently I've made three converts online. So, some of us are trying our best.

The thing I like about Harriet is how absolutely determined she is not to fall into Wimsey's arms.

Gaudy Night is probably my desert island read, actually.

Be prepared to have discussions about racism and sexism , many of her books have language and ideas that don’t stand up to modern sensibilities and many people find them uncomfortable and unacceptable reads for those reasons.

We've already discussed this at some length, @viques. Is there anything published before the last few years that would be acceptable by those standards?

Re Lord Peter Wimsey - I'm very sorry to report that I find him extremely tiresome. I'm very fond of Harriet, but LPW drives me to distraction. Give me Miss Marple or Poirot or Inspector Alleyn or, best of all, Albert Campion, any day of the week.

<flees from thread>

Sorry, didn’t read the whole thread so missed some crucial clues, now I will never know who did it………..

was Marjory Allingham mentioned, or Josephine Tey, the Daughter of Time might be an interesting read since the Richard 111 film is quite current.

Josephine Tey is the best of them all! (sorry, Agatha)

I love Miss Pym Disposes. Probably for similar reasons to loving Cat Among the Pigeons - I went to a girls' school, albeit a day school.

Very true. Miss Climpson is ace.

Ah brilliant, yes I always felt a sort of longing for Balliol. So many bits of Gaudy Night are so so good. Like the scene in the punt. And the scene at the concert at the end. They can have the harmony if they leave us the counterpoint. And all the scenes with Mr Pomfret "Are you by any chance Mr Jones of Jesus?" "Who're you calling a ruddy Welshman?" 😍

I always liked 'Curtain: Poirot's last case' but can't exactly remember why!

Ah brilliant, yes I always felt a sort of longing for Balliol. So many bits of Gaudy Night are so so good. Like the scene in the punt. And the scene at the concert at the end. They can have the harmony if they leave us the counterpoint. And all the scenes with Mr Pomfret "Are you by any chance Mr Jones of Jesus?" "Who're you calling a ruddy Welshman?"

Alas for the ivory chess pieces, though. I think of them whenever I walk down the High St, and imagine which shop Harriet bought them in.

‘Placetne tibi?’
probably the most erotic proposal in the whole of literature.

Much as I love the Wimsey stories, I have to agree with the late Ruth Rendell that the bedroom scenes in Busman's Honeymoon are most cringe-inducing in crime literature. The Gaudy Night proposal is not so bad, but I'm afraid I can't ever really believe in Lord P and Harriet as a romantic couple - they are much more convincing as friends/sparring partners.