Another spin and another attempt. Since incorporating not only my Classics Club list, but some of my other project lists, I’ve managed to read one book for each spin, so I’m going to continue! From my last spin, I’m finishing up The Amazing Adventures of Father Brown.
“A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace.”
In The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot takes the reader into a lazy, peaceful part of England, where life is lived in a slow reverie with the river ebbing and flowing and yet hard work and struggles can be at the forefront of existence. Yet within the scenery and the everyday monotony, there are people who live their lives with hopes and cares, frustrations and joys, dreams and tragedies.
The Hound of Death: “It was from William P. Ryan, American newspaper correspondent, that I first heard of the affair.”
Detective: None, as these are tales of the supernatural
Published: October 1933
Length: 218 pages
Setting: various:
A compilation of 12 short stories, The Hound of Death and Other Stories are not mysteries, but instead are tales of the macabre, tales of the supernatural, tales that are linked to the scary unknown. The tales were as follows:
Lord Edgware Dies: “The memory of the public is short.”
Also Published as: Thirteen at Dinner
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Published: September 1933
Length: 269 pages
Setting: London
Oh, an embarrassing post today courtesy of Top Ten Tuesday and I’m up to the challenge! I’m also curious to find out what I come up with ………
The Thirteen Problems: “Unsolved mysteries.”
Detective: Miss Marple
Published: June 1932
Compilation: Short Stories
Length: 256 pages
Setting: St. Mary Mead, Downshire (fictional)
During two different dinner parties in St. Mary Mead, Miss Marple is host and guest. There is a suggestion of the sharing of puzzling mysteries, where one person in the group tells a story and the others surmise its outcome or solution. Surprisingly, the small town spinster, Miss Marple, demonstrates her superior brain power and deductive skills. As each dinner guest shares a puzzling mystery and the others surmise the solution, Miss Marple is able to navigate all the clues, both obvious and unexpected, to solve each mystery in her quiet yet practical manner.
“No seaside town in the south of England is, I think, as attractive as St. Loo.”
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Published: 1932
Length: 270 pages
Setting: St. Loo(e), Cornwall
“When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.”
It seems like eons ago that I read a book by John Wyndham …… The Chrysalids, I believe it was …. and I should have remembered that it was weird. Just like The Day of the Triffids. Meat-eating plants with poison stingers and an odd way of transportation, not to mention a world-wide calamity that leaves most of the population blind. What could be stranger?
“Though it was nearly a year since her husband’s death, Emmeline Lucas (universally known to her friends as Lucia) still wore the deepest and most uncompromising mourning. “
Why is it that the British seem overstocked with authors who can write humorous tales that make readers want to read more, immediately after they finish the first book? I can think of a number of books and authors that fit into this category: P.G. Wodehouse, Jerome K. Jerome, I Capture the Castle, The Diary of a Nobody, Henrietta’s War, Stella Gibbons, and now E.F. Benson comes to the forefront.
I first was introduced to the Mapp and Lucia BBC production and wondered if the books could be just as entertaining. I was wrong. This one was even better!
If there’s one challenge I regularly participate in each year, it’s the Back to the Classics challenge. I participate whether I complete it or not as it gets me reading more classics and often helps me with my Classics Club list. I’m so glad that it’s back this year to give me more focus with my reading.