When the time comes that you walk into your local bookstore and find yourself giving an enthused lecture about a particular author to the lady at the cash register- you may be just a little bit obsessed. Now I'm not saying this is a bad thing, especially considering that my example happens to be (as you may have guessed) a true story. However, you might come away feeling just a little bit embarrassed and scolding yourself about keeping your mouth shut as you creep towards the nearest exit with a reddened face. One does not just give lectures to perfect strangers about your author of choice. You were of course just trying to be helpful and set her straight as she remarked "Why, I didn't know that Agatha Christie wrote under a pen name."
"Oh yes," you say as you scribble your name down on the recite. "Mary Westmacott. You see, she made such a big name for herself as a mystery writer that when it came to her novels that weren't mysteries her publishers..." Here you break off your sentence as you realize that the lady is regarding you with a bored expression and nodding as if she understands entirely and you needn't continue. You complete your sentence with a hurried nodding of your own head and take up your purchases in their brown bag and scuttle towards the door.
Outside the door you scold yourself severely and decide to keep all information gained from a certain autobiography to yourself in the future. Oh the troubles of an overly enthused reader! You think to yourself, but then a little voice in the back of your head prompts you to add, ...but she does work at a bookshop. Honestly. People these days. You would think someone working at a bookstore would be interested about these things. I know I would! and you walk away unrepentant.
Of course, other signs that you might be a wee bit obsessed are that you have written up great long list of all of Agatha Christie's ninety plus books and are slowly but surely crossing your way through them all. (As soon as I heard that she wrote that many books I instantly felt it was a challenge calling my name to read them all. A goal I mean to accomplish, you know.)
This goal is getting to be rather a challenge these days, just in finding books of hers I haven't read. She's written plenty of them of course- the thing is just finding them. I've exhausted our library's stock, and our local bookstore (of course, I can't really afford to buy as many as I should like anyways. More's the pity.) so I suppose I shall have to be patient and wait for three of them to come through inter-library-loan, but it takes ever such a long time!
As you can tell, I'm just rather in love with Agatha Christie's books. It's not so much the fact that they're mystery books, as I never really liked mystery books before I found hers, but I love her way of writing. They're clever and well written, and what I like most about them is the characters. (Yes, that could have been a statement to be predicted from me. More than anything I have a love of well written characters.) And her characters are well written. Her books give you glimpses of all sorts of different characters- what makes them human; their good qualities and their weaknesses. She allows you to step into another's shoes and see the world through their eyes- which can be a bit of an unnerving experience considering some of the people she writes.
To finish this off I believe I shall make up a list of my top ten favorite Agatha Christie's so far (of course this is keeping in mind I might not remember them all at the moment and may come up with one two days later and say "Oh no no, I like this best out of any of them!")
Emily's Top Ten Agatha Christie's (in no specific order)
1. The Secret Adversary.
2. Murder on the Orient Express.
3. The Man in the Brown Suit.
4. And Then There Were None.
5. N or M?
6. Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
7.The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
8. The Secret of the Chimneys.
9. Cat Among the Pigeons.
10. The Mysterious Mr. Quin.
*pictures from google images
