Christie Books

Buy nearly any of the other Christie audiobooks created within the past few years rather than spend your money on this one.

It's not nice to be harsh, but I nearly couldn't finish listening to this set, because so few of the stories were compelling enough to even take my mind off the traffic during my commute. Although I like nearly all of Christie's novels, this collection of short stories seems to indicate that Christie really didn't understand short story-writing, or was churning out stories without much heart for it or perhaps much good editing-- at least at the time.

At the end of each story, I sat there feeling cheated--as if the ending had been rushed to fit into a set number of pages. It's more like reading one of those 2-Minute Mysteries than the bit of nice, warm, chewy Agatha Christie brownie of a mystery I was hoping for.

Christie normally excells at creating delightful (either good or bad) characters, whose quirks and social interactions we anticipate and enjoy. Her normally keen sense of social wit is rather lackluster here. These short stories suffer greatly from her inability or lack of time to develop the characters and the social setting within so few pages.

Also, there probably is a following for this character, but I find Harley Quinn stories simply silly, and will never read them again. In a short story format there is simply no scope for a novelist, who isn't trained to have the discipline, to get us to suspend disbelief at the ooh-aah supernatural Mr. Quinn. I enjoy a good fantasy or what have you, but these stories simply fail to build into anything and seem terribly impressed with themselves.

If you'd like to explore Christie's little known "non-star" characters to try something of hers you haven't read, I enjoyed Ordeal by Innocence and Elephants Can Remember (which features "Ms. Oliver", who represents Christie herself).

I enjoyed the mystery of it all, but it was a little too much of a spy/Communist plot for my tastes. I prefer murder mysteries over espionage in the majority of cases. I did like the satisfying ending, though.

As expected, a typical Christie plot twist awaits the reader at the end. But getting there a long, tedious journey. The adaptation of the play doesn't work as a novel and I only stuck with it to see what Christie had in mind. This is easily read with only one setting (as in the play). I won't seek out the other plays-turned-novels.

Note: the listing on Amazon for the "Acting Version" has many reviews, which mostly refer to the novelization. This is one of Amazon's main annoying points -- books with multiple versions often have multiple listings with reviews, so it's difficult to get a clear picture without a lot of hunting. Amazon's method of listing multiple versions of books also gets 2 stars.

when i picked this book up at the library and saw artemisia gentileschi's painting, "judith slaying holofernes", on the cover and the title "women against men: revenge stories" i was thinking, "oh boy, this looks like it'll probably have some stories about women getting some sadistic revenge on rapists, or girlfriend/wife beaters, or child molesters or some scumbags like that." i was curious to see what ahem, imaginative forms of revenge some women came up with. i wanted to read these stories and smile or chuckle, and say "yeah! right on!" instead, i found that almost all the stories were incredibly stupid. most of them were either about women getting revenge on cheating husbands, or you couldn't even figure out what form the revenge took (some stories, the revenge just simply seemed nonexistent), or even figure out who was the recipient of the revenge. one of the stories, a mom gets revenge on her slutty daughters by sleeping w/one of the men they were all battling to get into bed! uh, i thought this book was women against men?!?. many of the women characters were spoiled rich wives, or just people you couldn't even really sympathize with because of their pettiness, pathetic-ness, or just plain out crappy personalities. about 20% of the stories the women got revenge through feeding the man something yucky or lethal. not a single rape revenge story. only one story was about revenge on a cruel, physically abusive husband, and in the other stories where the husbands may have been physically abusive, that fact was mentioned nonchalantly, like it takes a backseat to his cheating or calling his wife "fatty" (sticks and stones, people, sticks and stones... if he treats you like crap, leave him!). now, of course cheating is not a good thing, but it's not like women don't cheat either, and there are worse things a person could do to you. human relationships are too complex for cheating to be a crime punishable by death. anyway, i don't think this book is something that feminists can be proud of. the only reason i give this book two stars instead of one is to acknowledge a couple of the decent stories... probably agatha christie's is one of the best of the lot. all i can say is, if you're curious, check it out from your local library, or buy it used at a really cheap price... maybe someone else would find something worthwhile in many of the stories, but for me i found most to be very stupid, either badly/cheesily written, or crappy story-wise.

They have missed the point. When asked by the IRS to conduct an audit of your return, the very best thing to say is, "Is it mandatory or voluntary for me to let you see my private books and records?" Just watch, they will never answer - because it's VOLUNTARY! The courts have said so! It HAS TO BE voluntary, otherwise it would be a violation of your 4th and 5th amendment rights! You NEVER have to let the IRS see your records - even if they send you a summons, all you do is show up and claim the 5th each time they ask a question, or to see a document!! The book never tell you this!! So it is ultimately not helpful.

If you want to protect yourself against the IRS, you should start by asking why you need the protection to begin with. Books like this are all about trying to "play the game" as shrewedly as you can. This is absurd, since you're playing odds as much as you are playing the game. the IRS doesn't care about you or the Constitution, it cares about quotas and scaring you into submission.

Freedom is your birthright as an American. SEIZE IT! Read "Freedom in Chains" by James Bovard and "Your Money or your Life" by Sheldon Richman and "Why we mustAbolish the income tax" by Nelson Hultberg. These books point the way to freedom rather than more pointless submission.

If you liked to read Dear Abby or Ann Landers then you will love this book.

On the other hand if you were expecting a book on the psychology of money, one that explained the theory of how and why money affects the ways the people think and act, then look elsewhere.

The book begins with a short (five page) introduction to building relationships. The rest of the book is dedicate to the exposition of very short client situations followed by a couple of paragraphs where the author explains how she did (or would in some cases) deal with the client issues. There is no theory, no real psychology, just the author's opinion. Obviously her approaches to dealing with the client issues are not the only approaches, and may not even be the best ones. There are just the ones that she chose to present, and to present without any theory to back them up.

I admit I haven't yet read the book, but already I doubt the accuracy. Dame Agatha died in 1976. Was that REALLY fifty years ago?!

The book is definitely for the young reader. I sent mine back aafter just a few pages and a skim (since I am an old reader!). I have read Agatha's wonderful autobiorgraphy and I was astounded how this author could take the same info and make it so very boring. Lots of detail and no life. I wouldn't recommend it to young readers either-surely we can do better for our children.

This is a rare instance where you're better off just buying the Nutshell. The full casebook is mostly filler: page after page of statutes. There's very little helpful commentary or analysis. You can get pretty much the same material in the Nutshell for a lot less money.

I was hoping for more "general" information about the convection oven. Plus, I am a firm believer in PICTURES! Pictures help make recipes easier to follow. I also expected more common dishes, some of the ingredients are rather hard (and expensive) to come by.