Fourteen Agatha Christie novels. Fourteen poisons. Just because it’s fiction doesn’t mean it’s all made-up … Today is the 125th birthday of Agatha Christie. Few readers can claim they don’t know her. Exceedingly prolific, she has never been out of print and is outsold only by Shakespeare and the Bible. She is a curious contradiction…
REVIEW: DID SHE KILL HIM?
Stuck in the airport? Stuck with the in-laws? Feeling a bit murderous? Escape with this engrossing true (mainly unsolved) crime from Victorian England, with its roots in the American South. Florence Chandler, every inch the southern belle, took a steamer from New York to Liverpool in 1880. Her gold-digging mother planned to shop her on the…
Books for Bathtub Gin Drinkers
Two books devoted to that volatile and endlessly fascinating era… Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers & Swells Edited by Graydon Carter Drawing from the best of the Vanity Fair archive, this selection of essays, poems, stories and columns from the early days are a looking glass into the era. Beginning with the days of WWI and into the…
REVIEW: THE ART OF THE ENGLISH MURDER by Lucy Worsley
Lucy has the best job in England. She is curator for the Historic Royal Palaces, which means she has access to some of the coolest artifacts in the UK. She began her career by studying history, then becoming an inspector of historic homes for English Heritage. In addition to her impressive academic resume, she…
REVIEW: CARELESS PEOPLE by Sarah Churchwell
This is a must-read for any Gatsby enthusiast, English lit student, or lover of the Jazz Age. Churchwell carefully pieces together very specific events in the Fitzgeralds’ lives and relates them to Scott’s most famous work, The Great Gatsby. These are not wild hunches or bizarre theories. She draws from scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, letters from friends,…