For years, I have been scavenging book stores to look for books to read and to add to my growing collection. Lately, I’ve been concentrating mostly on classic books. For the first part of my first quarter book haul, I’ll enumerate the classic books I was able to obtain this year.
Agatha Christie Books
It was a college friend who introduced ne to Agatha Christie’s works. Her first work that I’ve read, Murder on the Orient Express left lasting impressions. From that point on, I kept looking for her books whenever I find myself in a bookstore, I make it a point to look for works of the Queen of Suspense. Luckily, when we happened to pass by Greenfield District, there was a Valentine’s Day affair. There was a booth for a used books bookstore. Unable to resist the urge, I broke my self-imposed vow not to buy more books until I reduce my to-be-read books to a more realistic number. But it’s a sale, and it’s Agatha Christie! In the end, I went home with five of her books, a great addition to my collection of 25 or so Agatha Christie books.
Title: N or M?
Publisher: Berkley Book, June 1984
No. of pages: 233
Synopsis: “N or M? The final words of the dying man… the code names of Hitler’s most dangerous agents… the elusive clue that sends that elegant detective team, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, to a fashionable seaside resort on a mission of wartime intelligence. But not as husband and wife. As strangers, meeting by chance, setting an elaborate trap for an elusive killer.
Title: Funerals Are Fatal
Publisher: Pocket Books, June 1954
No. of Pages: 213
Synopsis: “Hercule Poirot went looking for a killer. This is what he found:
- A bloody hatchet
- A piece if poisoned wedding cake
- The corpse of an eccentric widow whose face had been smashed beyond recognition
- A housekeeper who listened at keyholes
- Two nieces greedy for money and men
- And a bunch of quarrelsome relatives who needed cash and weren’t fussy about how to get it.
When he added them all up, Hercule Poirot had everything except one clue.
And he could get that only from the killer!”
Title: Partners in Crime
Publisher: Berkley Book, June 1984
No. of Pages: 230
Synopsis: “When that extraordinary couple, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, take over a near-bankrupt detective agency, they are warned by the Secret Service that the agency itself might be an information drop for Russian spies. Tommy and Tuppence are ever on the lookout for clues to uncover Bolshevik conspiracy, but meanwhile they solve case after case, each time assuming the methods and even the personalities of such great fictional detectives as Sherlock Holmes-and Hercule Poirot!”
Title: Death Comes As The End
Publisher: Pocket Books, 1972
No. of Pages: 222
Synopsis: “Discord entered the house of the ka-priest Imhotep with Nofret, the beautiful young concubine from the kingdom of the North. Strident hatred echoed within the walls of the women’s quarters, while in the fields, Imhotep’s sons muttered against the scheming, secret-smiling usurper.
Nofret’s violent death brought peace to the house, only a chill, unearthly dread, as an unseen hand felled, one by one, those near Imhotep’s heart…”
Title: The Rose And The Yew Tree
Publisher: Jove Books, January 1988
No. of Pages: 189
Synopsis: “Isabella Charteris – lovely, slender, serene as a medieval saint. The princess of Castle St. Loo, gently groomed for her shining knight and bright, untouched future of privilege.
John Gabriel – decorated hero, vulgar opportunist. That he should appear in her life at all spoke of the final chaos of war.
For Isabella, the price of love meant abandoning a dream forever. For Gabriel, it would destroy the only chance ambition would ever offer. What drew them together was something deeper than love.”
Title: A Passage To India
Author: E.M. Forster
Publisher: Hardcourt, Inc., 1952
Synopsis: “Hailed as one of the finest novels of the twentieth century and transformed into an Academy Award-winning film, A Passage to India hauntingly evokes India at the peak of the British colonial era, complete with the racial tension that underscores every aspect of daily life. Into this setting, Forster introduces Adela Quested and Mrs. Moore, British visitors to Chandrapore who, despite their strong ties to the exclusive colonial community there, are eager for a more savory taste of India. But when their fates tangle with those of Cecil Fielding and his local friend, Dr. Aziz, at the nearby Marabar Caves, the community of Chandrapore is split wide open and everyone’s life – British and Indian alike – is inexorably altered.”
Title: The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
Author: Douglas Adams
Publisher: Del Rey Books, 2005
No. of Pages: 216
Synopsis: “Seconds before Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend, Ford Perfect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.
Together, this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by a galaxyful of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-of-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian (formerly Tricia McMillan), Zaphod’s girlfriend, whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; and Veet Voojagig, a former graduate obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he’s brought over the year.
Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why so we die? For all the answers, stick your thumb to the stars.”
Title: Kim
Author: Rudyard Kipling
Publisher: Penguin Books, 1994
No. of Pages: 383
Synopsis: “Orphan sahib and bazaar-boy, Kim lives by his wits. His chameleon’s talent for disguise draws him into the Great Game – British intelligence in India – and on a mission to thwart foreign agents on the North-West frontier. Kim’s travels coincide with the quest of his friend the Tibetan lama, who is seeking redemption from the Wheel of Life. They are the heroes of an adventure crammed with incident and humour, alive with the hustle, bustle, life and colour of India.”
Title: The Moonstone
Author: Wilkie Collins
Publisher: Woodsworth Editions Limited, 1993
No. of Pages: 448
Synopsis: “The Moonstone, a priceless Indian diamond which had come to England as spoils of war, is given to Rachel Verrinder on her eighteenth birthday. That very night, the stone is stolen; suspicion falls on a hunchbacked housemaid, on Rachel’s cousin Franklin Blake, on a troupe of mysterious Indian jugglers, and on Rachel herself.
The phlegmatic Sergeant Cuff is called in, and with the help of Betteredge, the Robinson Crusoe-reading loquacious Steward, the mystery of the missing stone is ingeniously solved.”
The Pine-Scented Chronicles 