Re Rebecca, when I was about 16, my mother wanted me to read it but I wasn’t interested. So she sat me down and read me the first chapter. I was hooked. I can never read the memorable opening sentence without hearing her voice.
Of course Rebecca and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn have excellent movie adaptions, and All Creatures Great and Small has a tv series that might be available for streaming.
And The Once and Future King has both The Sword in the Stone Disney movie, but also Camelot.
I tried to read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn when I was in high school and never finished it was so boring. So maybe a veto there.
I am reminded that Josephine Tey wrote a bunch of mysteries with the Inspector Alan Grant novels. Somehow the only one I’ve read is The Daughter of Time. (The mystery of Richard III from a hospital bed.)
The Man in the Queue (or Killer in the Crowd) (1929) [as Gordon Daviot][8]
A Shilling for Candles (1936) [as Josephine Tey][9] (the basis of Hitchcock's 1937 film Young and Innocent)
The Franchise Affair (1948) [Inspector Grant appears briefly at the beginning, mentioned a few times] (filmed in 1950 starring Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray)
To Love and Be Wise (1950)
The Daughter of Time (1951) (voted greatest mystery novel of all time by the Crime Writers' Association in 1990)
The Singing Sands (1952) (turns on the discovery of the lost city of Wabar, based on the legend of Iram of the Pillars)
I always like comparing Rebecca with My Cousin Rachel, but I’ve read both many times so not my first choice.
My vote is:
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome and To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis - Duet (humor)
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie and Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers - Duet (whodunit) or possibly another mystery from that era.
@Marilyn, I feel the same way about Pride and Prejudice, but since this group read and discussed it in 2018, future re-reads will have to be on our own!
@VeryHappy, I’ll remove A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – thanks, that helps pare down the list.
@Caraid, I’m not going to include Such a Fun Age this round because of the potential difficulty of getting the book during quarantine. It’s not available in paperback yet and the kindle version is pretty pricey.
Finally, as I look up page count, I’m going to veto The Once and Future King because it’s 640 pages and I just don’t have it in me right now.
So that leaves us with:
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome and To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis - Duet (first is free online, second is fairly inexpensive kindle or paperback)
All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot (Kindle version is free if you have Amazon Prime)
Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier (easy to get an inexpensive used paperback)
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (free online) and Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers (free online) - a Whodunit Duet
I’ll try whatever is selected. Im in such a reading slump, I don’t want to rank the selections, I’ll let others weigh in.
Thank you, to all for your patience with my questions about Middlemarch. I took the lazy way out, and just watched the BBC. This discussion helped me understand this remarkable novel, without suffering reading it. I know, I know, I’m a light weight, oh well.
Kudos to those who finished, or are still reading Middlemarch!
I’m using the Clovid virus as my excuse for not reading this one, it’s my story and I’m sticking to it ?
Happy Easter, and Happy Passover, to those who celebrate, right now in New Jersey, we have lovely spring day,
tomorrow hurricane level wind gusts expected. Stay well, all,
*And Then There Were None* and *Whose Body?* - a Whodunit Duet
1.5. *Three Men in a Boat* and *To Say Nothing of the Dog* - Humor Duet
*All Creatures Great and Small*
1 and 1.5 are so close that I've gone back and forth with ranking both #1 but *And Then There Were None* and *Whose Body?* has the slightest edge - at least at this moment.
I have to second Year of Wonders. It was a great book. Any of the ones in the running are fine. I love Agatha Christie, so that would be fine. I loved All Creatures Great and Small, so that would be fine, too.
@mathmom, I’m not familiar with Dorothy Sayer’s body of work. If we went with the mystery combo, would Gaudy Night be a better choice than Whose Body??
Whose Body is first in the series (for those of us who are particular about that.) However, I’ll take a deep breath and defer to @mathmom’s judgement. (Not saying it won’t be hard for me to start with #12 should that be the decision. Both are mentioned online in Sayer’s top seven books.)
Whose Body is a good place to start. You should absolutely not start with Gaudy Night/. Each book is a stand alone, but once Peter meets Harriet Vane in Strong Poison there is another overarching arc to the series. I don’t remember much about Whose Poison except for a description that is sometimes described as anti-Semitic. I don’t think it was intentional, as there is a Jewish character who is a good friend of the detective who is in a number of the books.
OK, I FINALLY finished “Middlemarch” on Saturday – but didn’t have time to post until today.
Can I first say I’ve never been so glad to finish a book? It just seemed to drag on and on and on and on … I really have no idea if my mindset would have been different if I hadn’t read this in the midst of a pandemic. Perhaps I would have been able to sit down and read for longer stretches of time, and therefore finish it sooner, but would I have enjoyed it more?
I will say the second half of the book was better/more engaging than the first half. I really had no patience, though, for wading through some of the convoluted sentences and going back to reread sections to make sure I understood everything. No doubt I missed some of the details.
Even by the end of the book the only main character I actually liked was Mary Garth. I know I’m judging characters from my current day perspective, but honestly – IMO they were all twits!
I’m fine with any of the choices on the selection list. (Would veto “Moby Dick” if that hadn’t already been removed.)
That’s wonderful, @CBBBlinker! When the pain has passed, you’ll be glad you made yourself get through it, like…I don’t know…elective surgery?
There were definitely times in the first third of the book that I would have put it aside if I didn’t “have to” read it. By the end, however, it did feel like an old (if sometimes irritating) friend. When I went back to the “Middlemarch for Book Clubs” website and began to post the sets of questions in chronological order, the structure and interconnections fell more solidly into place. And as always, everyone’s comments helped me see aspects of the book I had completely missed.
There’s no doubt that Mary Garth was one of the most sensible and consistent characters in the book (her father Caleb, too): “…she neither tried to create illusions, nor indulged in them for her own behoof, and when she was in a good mood she had humor enough in her to laugh at herself.”
Mary Garth stands out in this regard. Dorothea, for all her goodness, definitely “creates illusions” and Rosamond is entirely unable to “laugh at herself.”
After much internal debate, I’ve come to the conclusion that our best choice for June would be And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie and Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers.
The primary reason is that I want to be sensitive to the fact that many libraries are closed and lots of people are watching every penny these days due to job loss or reduced income. The Christie and Sayers books are both free online.
The secondary reason is length. To Say Nothing of the Dog is 512 pages, so with Three Men in a Boat, the combo tops 620 pages. The Whodunit Duet is much shorter. Normally, length isn’t a major consideration, but a few of us might be suffering from Middlemarch PTSD.
I was very tempted by All Creatures Great and Small—truly a comfort read (and free with Prime)—but figured that the way things are going, we will probably all still need to be comforted come August, so we can consider it again then.
Good choice. I am not sure if I have actually read any Agatha Christies though I’ve watched many of the movies based on her books, so this will be a good excuse.
@CBBBlinker enjoyed reading your comments,
and commend you for finishing the book! What a personal memory for all, corona and MIddlemarch.- long and arduous …and , you survived both.
@mary13 those selections look perfect for next discussion !
Great choice @Mary13 ! I’m looking forward to revisiting Agatha Christie and I’ve been wanting to try Dorothy Sayers for a while now … time to brew a cup of tea and have a comfort read.
I’m still stuck in my reading slump so I haven’t been reading. Anything. I hope to pick up Middlemarch tonight. I’ve given myself an ultimatum. We’ll see. It’s been strange that I would even cook? rather than read.
I’m on board for the books picked for the June discussion. Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers combo is like going home. Coincidentally, I have an extra copy of And Then There Were None sitting in my give-away pile right now. It isn’t my favorite AC but I have watched the movies (in multiple languages) more recently than read the book.
Sayers is always a treat.
I would like to give one more vote for adding Josephine Tey to our list of authors for the future. The Daughter of Time is one of my favorite books. I think I actually went back and read * Richard III* after that.
