Some books i have been reading lately:
Agatha Christie: An english mystery - Laura Thompson (2007)

A biography of my favourite author so I read this with great interest: it”s a good complement to agatha”s own writings about her life ( she published two sets of autobiographical writings) - and goes into a lot that Agatha doesn”t reveal about herself. the disappearance in 1926, her first marriage etc.) I particularly enjoyed reading about her early life, i always do about people”s lives and the minutiae of everyday life in a bygone era.
“..wistful memories of her serene upbringing in the late-Victorian and Edwardian Torquay of villas set among rose gardens and impeccable lawns, retinues of servants, seven-course dinner parties, tennis matches, fancy-dress balls, dance cards, picture hats and sedate flirtations over the clack of croquet mallets.”
Desertion - Abdulrazak Gurnah ( 2006)

Published in 2006, by a man who is an english lit professor at the univ. of kent and originally from the beautiful sounding island of zanzibar - i found this really fascinating. ( if only for the details and insight into life in zanzibar, that exotic place, in the 50″s, and Mombasa, at the turn of the century) the two sets of tales are intertwined.
You can”t keep a good woman down - Alice Walker (1982)

Fourteen short stories, provocative, sharp and poignant. I read that this never got the kind of acclaim that The Color Purple received..ah well, there”s no accounting for taste, is there?
Dancers in Mourning - Margery Allingham (1937)

perhaps because i spent my childhood onwards devouring Christies, Margery Allingham was a crime writer i didn”t bother to delve into very much. i found an old penguin edition in the library, and having heard lots about Albert Campion over the years, picked it up. I found the narrative interesting, and sparkingly amusing, but i didn”t find it on par with a Christie, assuming I were comparing, of course.
Miss LonelyHearts and A Cool Million - Nathanael West (1933)

this man clearly had a wicked sense of humour, and a ripping sense of satire: black comedy about the Depression years. A random find at the library, the author sounds like an intriguing character, I must read more about him. America is such a crazy place, i”m interested in finding writers who touch upon that insanity.
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