'And Then There Were None' by Agatha Christie

And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie (4.0)

One of my favorite things about Agatha Christie novels is how seldom I can guess the outcome! It’s wonderful to be surprised. I had read this book many years ago and still couldn’t remember ‘who done it’. Except for a handful of racist comments at the beginning (which definitely gave us an idea of the time and type of characters but were quite jarring today), the story holds up well: 9 people invited to a remote island by a somewhat familiar though ultimately unknown host. One by one a visitor is murdered and one of the ceramic Indian figures (of the song) are broken. Inspection of the island proves no additional people are there and the killer must be one of the original 9. I watched the movie from 1945 afterward. While having some great old actors, the ending was truly ‘Hollywood’ and disappointing. The book’s ending is much better.

'Fen, Bog and Swamp' by Annie Proulx

Fen, Bog and Swamp, Annie Proulx (3.0)

The information about the history and details of the wetlands in this book is quite interesting. I particularly liked the segment on bogs and the peat which holds various secrets (and quite a few bodies). The overall message of how humans have been quite ignorant of how important these wetlands are to the health of our planet is powerful. What I didn’t like is the author’s nonchalance with regards to the authenticity. She mentions she is not an expert but has read many books on the subject. At the end, she says due to the pandemic, she also didn’t get to interview many of the experts. When writing about an important environmental subject, I would like to see more rigor. This approach was ok for the New Yorker article that summarized the book (which I recommend reading), but I was left wanting more from the longform version.

'For the Love of Books' by Graham Tarrant

For the Love of Books, Graham Tarrant (3.0)

I found a lot of interesting facts about writers and books in this book, which is written as a series of chapters summarizing the history of many book genres. Surprisingly Edgar Allen Poe was considered to be the first to write about a gentleman detective in short stories such as ‘Murders at the Rue Morgue’. Arthur Conan Doyle purportedly was inspired by Poe’s Monsieur A. Dupin for Sherlock Holmes. While I enjoyed many of the points, I eventually found it too UK centric and a bit scattered with regards to the writing. Kind of ironic that a book about books is not written as well as one would like.