Reading the Detectives discussion

It's very early days as we're only halfway through our current Sayers challenge, but Susan and I have been chatting about possibly doing an Agatha Christie-themed challenge next year, as she is such a popular Golden Age author.

One possible idea is to read through all the Miss Marple books, as we have been doing with Wimsey. There are 12 novels about Miss Marple, plus various short stories, so it should fit well into a year.

Does anyone fancy taking part? This is only a tentative suggestion at the moment, just to get an idea of the level of interest.

I would be up for it!

Thanks, Hilary. Of course, people could join in on as few or as many as they wanted, as with our current challenge.

Sounds good.

Yes I would like that.

Sounds really good to me

Sounds great

I like it!

Love it- I've read most of them but not chronologically. This will be fun. Count me in!

Good to see such a positive response. Miss Marple's books seem to fit a 12 month challenge pretty neatly too!

I think that's an excellent idea.

It fits nicely. A great idea!

Yes I'd love a Miss Marple read.

Thanks, everyone, it's great to see such a lot of initial interest! We will tell you more later. :)

I would love a Miss Marple read. She tends to take a back seat to M Poirot. She deserves to take the wheel!

I love Poirot, but I do agree that Miss Marple does deserve to take centre stage, Daniele :)

Judy wrote: One possible idea is to read through all the Miss Marple books, as we have been doing with Wimsey. There are 12 novels about Miss Marple, plus various short stories, so it should fit well into a year..."

I love Miss Marple (and actively dislike Poirot!), but are the books all in print and available? I haven't checked, but we should make sure they are before settling on it, shouldn't we?

Everyman wrote: "Judy wrote: One possible idea is to read through all the Miss Marple books, as we have been doing with Wimsey. There are 12 novels about Miss Marple, plus various short stories, so it should fit we..."

Yes- Harper Collins brings out all her titles.

I think Judy has checked, Everyman, but I would imagine that Agatha Christie will be easy to find worldwide, which is one reason why we decided on her. Any twelve month group challenge will need to be pretty well known to allow as many people who want to join in to actually do so.

Yes, I checked and the books are all in print in both the UK and the US, and hopefully should be easy to find all round the world because Christie is so popular. There are also a lot of second-hand paperbacks and audio books.

This reminds me, the Miss Marple books are all on Kindle in the UK, but I'm not sure if that's the case in the US, as it is hard to check from another country - can someone in the US let us know? If not, it may hopefully be a temporary blip while new editions come out, as I can see they are all available on Nook.

Many thanks for checking, Jackie, that's good to know.

Great idea! I'm looking forward to reading the Miss Marples during 2017.

...and £3.99 on iBooks. : )

Jackie Renee wrote: "All the Miss Marple books are available on Kindle in the US. Most of them are priced $7.99."

I have picked up a number of her books when they have become available on the kindle daily deals - $1.99-2.99.

Good to have such a favourable response. Christie is my favourite author ever, so I am really looking forward to this. However, it is also great to finally get around to reading all of the Lord Peter Wimsey books and so I am looking forward to the rest of the years reading too :)

Absolutely in favor of Miss Marple for 2017! I can always reread this series. Have them all in hardback and on my Kindle.

Good news, Karen. Looking forward to it already!

Very excited for this! I recently started reading them in order but stopped to catch up on Lord Peter.

Good to hear, Helen.

Wonderful! I love Miss Marple and this will also be an excellent excuse for re-watching all of the BBC series (with Joan Hickson, of course, the best Miss Marple ever ;) ). I am thoroughly enjoying re-reading all of the Peter Wimsey books, too.

So glad I found this group!

That's great to hear, Phyllis - we're glad you found us too :) I liked Joan Hickson as Miss Marple as well.

Helen and Phyllis, great that you are looking forward to this! I haven't read many Miss Marples, so am really looking forward to getting into them and also comparing the different TV and movie versions. I also like Joan Hickson.

I will join this challenge!

Good to hear, Elissa. Welcome aboard!

Given the great response, Susan and I have been discussing this further and we are going to go ahead with a Miss Marple challenge next year.

As there are 12 novels, the plan is to read one a month. We may possibly add short stories as an extra if there is enough interest.

People will be able to sign up in the New Year - seems ages away, but amazingly there's only just over 4 months to go!

Here is a list of the novels, with the month - Susan kindly found the titles and publication dates:

January: The Murder at the Vicarage (1930)

February: The Body in the Library (1942)

March: The Moving Finger (1943)

April: A Murder is Announced (1950)

May: They Do It with Mirrors, or Murder with Mirrors (1952)

June: A Pocket Full of Rye (1953)

July: 4.50 from Paddington, or What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw! (1957)

August: The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, or The Mirror Crack'd (1962)

September: A Caribbean Mystery (1964)

October: At Bertram's Hotel (1965)

November: Nemesis (1971)

December: Sleeping Murder (written around 1940, published 1976)

Count me in! I don't have four of these but that can be easily taken care of :)

Good to hear, Lady Clementina.

As there are, exactly, twelve novels, it made sense to go with these. However, as Judy says, if there is any interest in the short stories, then we will try to work out how best to include them. Let us know whether you want to read the short stories as well, or whether you would be happy to concentrate on the novels.

Judy wrote: "It's very early days as we're only halfway through our current Sayers challenge, but Susan and I have been chatting about possibly doing an Agatha Christie-themed challenge next year, as she is suc..."

Sounds like a good idea :-)

Putting the extra short stories book in this year has worked, so I can't see doing it again should be a problem.

There is The Thirteen Problems and Miss Marple's Final Cases or a collection Miss Marple and Mystery: Over 50 Stories, which is a complete collection of short stories. We can either insert the two collections - The Thirteen Problems is the second Miss Marple Book, so it would need to be an extra book in Jan/Feb and the last collection of stories, Miss Marple's Final Cases, would be an extra in December, or read the complete collection; taking a number of stories each month.

If anyone knows of any other short stories outside of those two collections, please let me know. Also, state your preference for the two 'extra' books, or having extra stories each month.

Susan, thanks very much for the suggestions for reading the short stories. Either way would be fine by me, if we do go ahead and add in the stories.

Do you know if there are any extra stories in Miss Marple and Mystery which aren't in the two books you mentioned?

I need to do a bit more research, Judy. One of the reasons why I thought it might be worth adding the two extra books of short stories is that one is a book of linked stories - the Thirteen Problems. There might be a few more, so we could have the collection of short stories and do so many a month. I will have a think about it and welcome suggestions!

Thanks, Susan, sounds as if it could work very well either way. The book of linked stories sounds quite intriguing - a bit like the Christmas story collections Dickens used to edit where a group of characters each told a tale, though in those different writers contributed.

Yes, that is why I am thinking of doing that as an extra book - it's the second book so - as February is such a short month - I will have to think about where to slot it in.

Susan wrote: "Yes, that is why I am thinking of doing that as an extra book - it's the second book so - as February is such a short month - I will have to think about where to slot it in."

Do it the last week and start March a week late?

Technically, in terms of being published, that collection is Book 2. January is quite long, so I could do it the end of Jan and then start Book 3 a week into February. I'll make it work somehow!

I only just joined this group, but I am so in! I love Poirot, and have never read any of the Miss Marple books. (I'm sorry I found this group so late in the year, too. I was just thinking I ought to start reading the Lord Peter Wimsey books.)

For those who were wondering about getting the books, my local library has all but one available through Overdrive. The one that isn't on Overdrive is available on Hoopla (along with 9 more). If anyone here hasn't checked to see if your library lends ebooks and digital audiobooks, you should! It's life-changing. ;)

Welcome, Michelle. Glad you could join us. I love Poirot too :)

Welcome, Michelle, great that you've found us and are planning to join in on Miss Marple!

The threads for the Wimsey books will also stay open, so if you do read any of those you are very welcome to post your thoughts.

I've also been finding Overdrive very useful - looks as if my library has all or most of the Miss Marple books on eBook, as well as in print.

I was fascinated to see (in post 36) how far apart these mysteries were written. According to that post, the first Miss Marple was published in 1930, but the next wasn't published until 1942, then a 1943, then another gap until 1950. It would be interesting to know why -- did she feel that the first Miss Marple was a failure, or didn't sell well? And once she had published three, why the seven year gap?