Agatha Christie Google Doodle

Continuing the posts and celebrations of Agatha Christie this month, Google UK treated its users to a  Google Doodle in honor of Agatha Christie's 120th Birthday. Alas, it didn't appear on the US Google search page. The Google logo crime scene includes the mustaches of Hercule Poirot and so much more!

 Other Agatha Christie news today. From the Guardian: "HarperCollins Publishers is taking over the exclusive worldwide English rights to Agatha Christie's work including digital and audio formats ... This is the first time since the 1980s that all of Christie's books have been with a single publisher in the U.S. and the only time the program has been with one publisher worldwide.

Lift a glass of champagne or have a tea and scone in honor of Agatha Christie, Queen of Crime!!!  Happy Birthday, Agatha Christie!

David Thompson: R.I.P.

Shocking and very sad news. David Thompson, the force behind Busted Flush Press, died suddenly yesterday, September 13. Besides Busted Flush Press, David worked at Murder by the Book for 21 years. He made an indelible impression on the store and everyone who met him. David was co-chair of Bouchercon St. Louis (2011).

David Thompson was so supportive of everyone in the mystery community. Personally we exchanged numerous emails and tweets on authors, signings and new books. He arranged several of the Mystery Reader Literary Salons. Prior to one of the recent Literary Salon with Don Winslow, in addition to sending bookmarks, David put in a bag of chocolate flavored coffee beans for me. Always the personal touch. He knew my taste in chocolate and in crime fiction and was always suggesting new authors. He was always right. He expanded my reading tastes. I will miss him.

There will be a memorial service. Murder by the Book will share details as soon as they are available. In the meantime, David's wife, McKenna Jordan, asks that no tributes be sent to the bookstore for now.

Still reeling from the shock.

***
Sarah Weinman has a tribute and links to the many other tributes.

UPDATE: On Sunday, September 26, there will be a celebration of David's life at the Briar Club, 2603 Timmons Lane, Houston, 77027, 2-  5 PM. In addition, Alafair Burke has set up a fund for those who wish to donate money in David's name, is available at the Murder By the Book website.

Re-Reading Agatha Christie: Alternate Titles

As I mentioned the other day, September 15 is the 120th anniversary of Agatha Christie's birth, and there are big doings in Torquay and elsewhere.

I've been blogging this week about Agatha Christie, both here and on my other Blog, DyingforChocolate.com. Check out my other Agatha Christie, Queen of Crime, posts on Mystery Fanfare and Dying for Chocolate. More to come.

Today is Day 14 of the Agatha Christie 120 Blog Tour that Kerrie Smith of Mysteries in Paradise has organized. Kerrie identifies Agatha Christie posts all year round at the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge. Be sure and check out the posts on the Agatha Christie 120 Blog Carnival Tour, a different blog site every day. Links here. This is a great way to find new Crime Fiction Blogs, too!


I’m a huge fan of Agatha Christie, and I’ve been celebrating her 120th birthday this month by re-reading many of her novels. As I started to do this, I was reminded that I’ve read many of her 75+ novels more than once, not always by design. Sometimes I’ve read a specific Christie mystery because  I was using it in a course or bookgroup. Very legitimate reason. Sometimes I've reread one of her novesl because it was so good I thought it deserved a second or third reading.

Alas, there have been other reasons. Sometimes I just forget I read the novel. Agatha Christie is such a fine plotter that I rarely remember what happens, so I can re-read the book as if it's brand new. Oh yes, occasionally bits and pieces fall into place, but rarely the endings. This reason moved to number one as I got older, but really it’s all about Christie and her writing that keeps me intrigued. When you’re reading one of her novels, no matter if a Poirot, a Marple, or whatever, you turn the page and say, aha! Then you turn the page again, and there’s a completely different ‘turn of events’, and so it goes. She’s truly the Queen of Crime. Her plots are intricate, unexpected and witty!

The second reason that I’ve unwittingly re-read some of her novels is that there are alternate titles for many of them. Many times years ago when I was traveling abroad or at the bookstore looking for a good read, knowing that Christie would foot the bill, I would come across these, buy them, and read them (for the second time). Many of the Agatha Christie Mysteries were retitled for the American Market and at other times retitled even in the U.K. because of changed sensibilities. And, sometimes, I've bought and read copies that where bootlegs with different titles altogether (Indian editions). Sometimes I bought them in another language (Meutre au champagne: Sparkling Cyanide).  Such an easy mistake.

So to save you the trouble, here are some of my favorite Christies and their alternate titles. But maybe you’re like me, it doesn’t really matter. Agatha Christie mysteries are always worth re-reading.


Th Sittaford Mystery: Alternate Title: The Murder at Hazelmoor

Lord Edgware Dies: Alternate Title Thirteen At Dinner

Murder in the Calais Coach: Alternate Title: Murder on the Orient Express:

Why Didn't They Ask Evans?:  Alternate Title: The Boomerang Clue

Three Act Tragedy: Alternate Title: Murder In Three Acts

The ABC Murders: Alternate Title: The Alphabet Murders

Dumb Witness: Alternate Titles: Poirot Loses A Client, Murder At Littlegreen House, and Mystery at Littlegreen House

Hercule Poirot's Christmas: Alternate Titles: A Holiday for Murder, Murder For Christmas

Murder Is Easy: Alternate Title: Easy to Kill

Ten Little Niggers: Alternate Titles: And Then There Were None, Ten Little Indians

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe:  Alternate Titles: The Patriotic Murders; An Overdose of Death

Murder in Retrospect: Alternate Title Hercule Poirot Five Little Pigs

Towards Zero Alternate Title: Come and Be Hanged

Remembered Death: Alternate Title: Sparkling Cyanide

The Hollow: Alternate Title: Murder After Hours


Taken At The Flood: Alternate Title: There Is A Tide

Mrs. McGinty's Dead: Alternate Title: Blood Will Tell

Murder with Mirrors Alternate Title: They Do It With Mirrors

Funerals are Fatal: Alternate Titles:  Murder at the Gallop

Destination Unknown: Alternate Title: So Many Steps To Death:

Hickory, Dickory, Dock: Alternate Title: Hickory, Dickory, Death

4.50 from Paddington: Alternate Titles: Murder She Said, What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!

The Mirror Crack'd: Alternate Title: The Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side

Agatha Christie 120 Years

So many celebrations in honor of Agatha Christie's 120th birthday this year.

Over the years, I've read just about every novel and story, play and reference book on the Grande Dame of Crime Fiction. I've taught classes on Agatha Christie at UCB, Santa Cruz, St. Mary's College, as well as focused on Agatha Christie in my mystery bookgroup. 

Agatha Christie visited the UC Botanical Garden and was particularly taken by the Peruvian Lily. Poisonous? In honor of that long-ago visit, I organized a poison tour of the UC Botanical Garden with a very knowledgeable guide for my bookgroup.

For Agatha Christie's Centennial, I attended the CWA (Crime Writers UK) conference in Torquay which included the Agatha Christie Centennial Celebration Banquet. Everyone was there, and by that, I mean all my favorite British crime writers and many of the actors who portrayed Christie's characters over the years. David Suchet sat at the next table. I saw Joan Hickson in the Ladies Room. During that same trip, I went with CWA to visit Greenway, the long before it was opened to the public. The family was in residence at the time, and either they forgot that a group of mystery writers was stopping by or they didn’t care. It was a very lovely (and intimate) tour of the house.

When I returned to the States that year, I was on the organizing committee of the U.S. Agatha Christie Centennial. There were reading challenges, library talks, courses and lectures, and I wrote an 'Agatha-Christie inspired' interactive mystery event. It was great fun!

If you happen to be in England this week, check out the Festivities at the Agatha Christie Festival. Full Program of the Agatha Christie Festival.  Can't be there? You can read an Agatha Christie, but to guide you, there are several Blog Tours this month celebrating Agatha Christie, the Queen of Crime. 

Kerrie Smith of Mysteries in Paradise who identifies Agatha Christie posts all year round (Agatha Christie Reading Challenge) has organized a wonderful Agatha Christie 120 Blog Tour  this month. Be sure and check out the posts, a different blog site every day. Links here. This is also a great way to be introduced to wonderful Crime Fiction Blogs, too! Mystery Fanfare will be part of the Blog Tour, and I'll be posting later this week.

I'll also be blogging about Nursery Rhymes and Agatha Christie on the Barnes & Noble Mystery Bookclub site this week. Be sure and follow the daily postings from Christie experts and crime writers. Becke Davis is the Mystery Book Club Coordinator, and a big Agatha Christie Fan. 

On my DyingforChocolate blog this week, I'll be posting a special  recipe for chocolate cake called Delicious Death developed by Jane Asher for the Official Agatha Christie Celebraton. 

Stop by all of these sites for everything and anything Agatha Christie. Let me know about any others!

And here's a real treat:  A Video of a 1955 interview with Agatha Christie from the BBC Archives in which Agatha Christie talks about her lack of formal education and how boredom during childhood led her to write 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles'. She outlines her working methods and discusses why it is much easier to write plays than novels. 

Raise a glass on September 15 to the Queen of Crime!

Literary Tattoos: The Word Made Flesh Book Trailer

From Publisher's Weekly comes info on a new book Literary Tattoos: The Word Made Flesh. Will this save books?  er... flesh?

Two young writers noticed a different kind of phenomenon–they noticed lots of people are getting literary tattoos: quotes or illustrations from all kinds of books, as you can see in the book trailer below. The results of their investigation will be published as The Word Made Flesh, a beautiful illustrated book from Harper Perennial next month.



The Word Made Flesh - book trailer from Tattoolit on Vimeo.

2010 Maltese Falcon Award

Jiro Kimura at The Gumshoe Site  tells us that U.S. author Don Winslow has won the 2010 Maltese Falcon Award for his novel The Power of the Dog (originally published in 2005). 

The Falcon is given out by the Maltese Falcon Society of Japan to “the best hard-boiled/private eye novel published in Japan in the previous year.”

Congratulations, Don!