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Reading "The Lemon Tree" by Sandy Tolan. Almost halfway through.

Exceptional work. Is quite successful in presenting both sides of the Israel-Palestine story.

Also continuing with Elizabeth Kolbert's "The Sixth Extinction" and completed "Of Human Bondage" by Maugham. The latter turned to hog a leading position in my list of best books.

Yes, Piyadassi, 'Of human Bondage' is right up there with the best in my private hall of fame! If you like Maugham's work you may have read his "Ashenden" series, based on his own experiences as a British secret agent during WWI.

Read Keigo Higashino's 'Salvation of a Saint' book last week. It was praised by many as in the same class of Agatha Christie's cerebral, celebrated 'Whodunnits'. Unfortunately, the plot never thickened and the plot itself was diaphanous.

What could have been a better short story was stretched to a novel size. My hunt for a contemporary whodunnit in the same league as Agatha Christie continues.

:thumbs up
Nothing beats The Murder of Roger Ackroyd when it comes to whodunnits.

Please do list down the ones that you've read and enjoyed. Would love to pick one of those. Thanks

Thank you Eddy Sir. Yes. The murder of Roger Ackroyd was her most famous fiendishly clever whodunnits. But there are other equally well crafted diabolical plots from her repertoire : - Murder on the Nile, And then there were none (10 Little Indians), Murder is Easy, Mirror Crack'd, The ABC Murders and so on.

I have read all her work. In my humble view, she is the most celebrated author of this genre. Her short stories are little gems of mysteries.

There are other lesser known authors who essayed whodunnits ( most of the ones I read are from last century): The Greek Coffin Mystery from Ellery Queen and the short stories - Brown Series from G.K.Chesterton.

I could just quote from what came to mind at a short notice.

Reading Doug DeMuro's 'Plays with Cars' which is his collection of car reviews and experiences. He has a way with words and pretty funny. Don't expect serious reviews as it's mostly funny and covers older and unique cars.

If you don't know him, he has a popular Youtube channel for car reviews and in general on cars. He was previously a writer for couple of auto websites as well.

Most emphatically agree, big Agatha Christie fan here!

My favourites (apart from The Murder of Roger Ackroyd) are Murder on the Orient Express, 4:50 from Paddington and Why didn't they ask Evans?

Cheers,
Vikram

Glad to meet another Agatha Christie fan here. I have collected some short movies from the BBC on Agatha Christie. David Suchet fits the role of the 'immortal' Hercule Poirot in those series.

Do you notice one thing when reading her work ? It is quite a bit of cerebral workout to guess the culprit. One sure thing is - even after reading so many of her books, the 'who' can still be baffling. Some of critics crib that her characters are not fleshed deeply. I completely disagree.

Will surely do. Thanks.

And her first novel, The Mysterious Affairs at Styles was based on a murder committed in Hotel Savoy in Mussourie.

Agatha Christie and her India connection. :)

I'm not a frequent visitor to the thread & so must ask to be excused for the late rejoinder here! It is probably no longer a secret that Dan Brown himself turned wannabe with his first book (The Da Vinci Code), which is a fictional take off on "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, which, predictably, was a bestseller when published.

This book was a nice bit of imaginative, investigative reporting by three journalists/reporters - purportedly tracing the blood-line of Jesus & Mary Magdalene right down to the present day conspiracy theory involving the secret society "The Priory of Sion". (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ho...the_Holy_Grail)

My July reads:

To Sir, with Love - E.R. Braithwaite
A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf
Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey

What I recently got and have got myself 3/4th of the way in reading it.

From Burma to Japan with Azad Hind by Ramesh S Benegal

Read Dan Brown's latest- Origin. Exact same pattern as all the other books. Was mostly disappointed. No real wow moments and very shallow.

The main positive was the central theme chosen- something that is being discussed a lot now a days and a little thought provoking.

I feel that he is now writing with the guaranteed movie adaptation in mind. This will no doubt turn into a blockbuster movie.

Predictable and boring, I think it's time to put the franchise to rest. The writing is still good and paced well, but that's pretty much it.

Most of the film adaptations have been pretty poor; Angels and Demons was esp. a travesty, they fiddled with the plot and ended up making an underwhelming mess.

Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon (in my humble opinion only) is the worst case of miscasting I've seen recently. He isn't even on a list of people I'd think of to cast that particular role, forget being the first name that comes to mind, but who cares in a world where Tom Cruise is Jack Reacher.lol:

Exactly. I don't think the films were able to do any kind of justice to the book. One reason I felt was that both Da Vinci Code and 'Angels and Demons' were pretty deep into the ideas being discussed. Many parts required you to stop and think and maybe read again to connect things well. The film could not really translate that well.

From that perspective-'Orgin' is good film material,The plot points are pretty shallow and the whole thing can be easily made into a fast paced film. I skipped through pages several times as it seemed to have no relevance.

Almost as if he was asked to keep it light so that the movie can be made :D