I became fascinated with Agatha Christie novels when my friend Sheila started reading them in the eighth grade. Maybe her copy of The Body in the Library might have belonged to her older sister or to her mother: I’m not sure where her copy came from, but I was sure
Even though it was described as "easily the wittiest novel of the season" when it was published in 1931, I wasn't expecting to find Poor Caroline so amusing. Not laugh-out-loud hilarity, no, but many quiet chuckles, gentle hrumphs, and the occasional indignant snort at Mr. Johnson's impressions of women, which
The new issue of Bookmarks appearing in my mailbox is always a happy time. At one time it would be closely followed by a trip to the library, issue in hand, but now it's closely followed by a lengthy session of list-making (and, sometimes, drooling). This issue didn't provoke a
Just browsing through the table of contents of this essay collection might lead you to believe that it was penned by a feminist. Depending how you define feminist, of course. Certainly Atwood is as willing to consider works by Toni Morrison, Carol Shields, Angela Carter and Hilary Mantel as she
I pulled Down a Dark Hall off my shelf because it was in such poor shape that it stood out as having been re-read most frequently. But that wasn't an easy call: they all look pretty rough. When I got to high school, I entered the phase where I tried
