Tag Archives: Hercule Poirot

Friday Face Off: clocks

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Friday Face Off

The Friday Face-Off was originally created by Books by Proxy:
each Friday, bloggers showcase book covers on a weekly theme.
Visit Lynn’s Books (@LynnsBooks) for a list of upcoming themes.
Please visit also Tammy at Books, Bones & Buffy (@tammy_sparks)
thanks to whom I discovered this meme.

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This week, the theme is
“Rage against the machine – anything, cogs, clockwork, AI“

I’ve gone simple with Clocks, and featuring here one of Agatha Christie’s novels:

The Clocks

The Clocks was published in 1963. I listened to it when I did my project of listening to all of Hercule Poirot. This is #30 in the series.

It’s great at the beginning, then I found it a bit slow. The plot was much more complex than it looked, despise what Hercule Poirot said.
The neat thing is the reference Agatha Christie makes to many authors of crime fiction – in Chapter 14.
There’s also a cool description of how books can take over your place or your world!
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“Sheila Webb, typist-for-hire, has arrived at 19 Wilbraham Crescent in the seaside town of Crowdean to accept a new job. What she finds is a well-dressed corpse surrounded by five clocks. Mrs. Pebmarsh, the blind owner of No. 19, denies all knowledge of ringing Sheila’s secretarial agency and asking for her by name — yet someone did. Nor does she own that many clocks. And neither woman seems to know the victim.
Colin Lamb, a young intelligence specialist working a case of his own at the nearby naval yard, happens to be on the scene at the time of Sheila Webb’s ghastly discovery. Lamb knows of only one man who can properly investigate a crime as bizarre and baffling as what happened inside No. 19 — his friend and mentor, Hercule Poirot. “
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Click on the picture below if you want to identify the various editions
You can also right click and ‘open image in new tab’ to zoom in

Clocks

My favorite cover is the Dutch edition, for its cleverness. Funny that no other illustrator thought of that! Too bad it’s not more artistically done.

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Have you read this book?
WHICH COVER IS YOUR FAVORITE? WHY?
My next participation may be on Friday, September 23:
“Tough Travel Tropes – Coming of Age”

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Book review: Agatha Christie Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World

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Agatha Christie's Poirot

 

Agatha Christie Poirot:
The Greatest Detective in the World
by Mark Aldridge
William Morrow
11/12/2020
488 pages
Nonfiction / Books about books
Goodreads

Buy the book on my Bookshop

After listening to all of Hercule Poirot short stories and novels, I decided to conclude my experience with Agatha Christie Poirot:
The Greatest Detective in the World.

Click to continue reading

Bout of Books 33: Day 3 Recap

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BOUT OF BOOKS 33

Day 3 Recap

Bout of Books 33
#boutofbooks
This is my 20th participation!

Click on the logo to join the fun!

The Bout of Books readathon is organized
by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple.
It’s a weeklong readathon that begins Monday, January 3rd
and runs through Sunday, January 9 in YOUR time zone.
Bout of Books is low-pressure.
There are reading sprints, Twitter chats,
and exclusive Instagram challenges,
but they’re all completely optional
For Bout of Books 33 information and updates,
visit the Bout of Books blog.
From the Bout of Books team

Here is what I read on DAY 3:

  1. The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu (library winter challenge) = 12 pages
  2. Red is my Heart, by Antoine Laurain = 40 pages = FINISHED
  3. Wabi Sabi, by Beth Kempton = 12 pages
  4. Agatha Christie’s Poirot, by Mark Aldridge = 14 pages
  5. A Brush With Birds, by Richard Weatherly = 13 pages
  6. Œuvres complètes de Paul Valéry, volume 1 = 11 pages
  7. Les Chemins du cœur, by Placide Deseille = 12 pages
  8. Audiobook: Gravé dans le sable, by Michel Bussi = 1H16 hour = 47 pages

Total for Day 3:  161 pages
TOTAL so far:  390/455 pages

Done with Red is my Heart, a unique book, with as much art as heart. My review is scheduled for January 17
📚 I did the Instagram challenge: favorite bookcover (of 2021)

When I calculated my audio time today, something didn’t seem right, and I realized I had miscalculated on Day 1. So I edited my page number for day 1 here below and total.

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Here is what I read on DAY 2:

  1. The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu (library winter challenge) = 33 pages
  2. Red is my Heart, by Antoine Laurain = 26 pages
  3. Wabi Sabi, by Beth Kempton = 17 pages
  4. Agatha Christie’s Poirot, by Mark Aldridge = 17 pages
  5. A Brush With Birds, by Richard Weatherly = 10 pages
  6. Œuvres complètes de Paul Valéry, volume 1 = 11 pages
  7. Les Chemins du cœur, by Placide Deseille = 6 pages

Total for Day 2:   120 pages
TOTAL so far:  239/455 pages

Quite happy with the second day, even though I didn’t have any audio time!
I started Red is my Heart, a delightful book based on a heart break.
📚 I did the Instagram challenge: favorite book (of 2021)

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Here is what I read on DAY 1:

  1. The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu (library winter challenge) = 23 pages
  2. Dictionnaire amoureux du polar, by Pierre Lemaitre = 8 pages
  3. Wabi Sabi, by Beth Kempton = 11 pages
  4. Agatha Christie’s Poirot, by Mark Aldridge = 9 pages
  5. A Brush With Birds, by Richard Weatherly = 10 pages
  6. Œuvres complètes de Paul Valéry, volume 1 = 12 pages
  7. Les Chemins du cœur, by Placide Deseille = 8 pages
  8. Audiobook: Gravé dans le sable, by Michel Bussi = 1 hour = 59 38 pages

Total for Day 1:  140 119 pages
TOTAL so far:  140 119 /455 pages

Very happy with this first day. I will probably not be able to read much on Thursday, so it’s good to start the week strong.
📚 I did the Instagram challenge: what I am reading

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The January Bout of Books is definitely a challenge for me, as I’m having my Orthodox Christmas right in it (on January 7), so with more time spent in Church, so less time for evening reads.
So I’ll set my goal as 65 pages/day, that is, a total of 455 pages only.

Here are the books I plan to read from. Some I am currently reading

  1. The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu (library winter challenge)
  2. Red is my Heart, by Antoine Laurain = FINISHED
  3. Dictionnaire amoureux du polar, by Pierre Lemaitre
  4. Wabi Sabi, by Beth Kempton
  5. Agatha Christie’s Poirot, by Mark Aldridge
  6. A Brush With Birds, by Richard Weatherly
  7. Œuvres complètes de Paul Valéry, volume 1
  8. Les Chemins du cœur, by Placide Deseille
  9. The Wild Geese, by Ogai Mori (Japanese Literature Challenge)
  10.  Audiobook: Gravé dans le sable, by Michel Bussi

SCHEDULE

Reading-in-place times, or reading sprints, happen daily on Twitter*. If you don’t have Twitter, make note of these times and report your reading progress on your platform of choice.
All reading-in-place times last 30 minutes.

Daily Reading-in-Place Times

📚 10 a.m. Eastern | 7 a.m. Pacific
📚 2 p.m. Eastern | 11 a.m. Pacific
📚 6 p.m. Eastern | 3 p.m. Pacific

Twitter Chats

(chats last approximately one hour)
TZC = Time Zone Conversion

Monday: 9 p.m. Eastern | 6 p.m. Pacific
Saturday: 11 a.m. Eastern | 8 a.m. Pacific

*Please note that these are the activities run through the Bout of Books account on Twitter. More reading sprints, Twitter chats, and other events may be hosted by experts, either on Twitter or on the Bout of Books Discord.

Click on the logo to sign up

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