I am a great lover of my library and I am fortunate to live close to three charity bookshops (for my US readers these are secondhand bookshops where all the proceeds got to the charity that owns the store). Therefore, when the book shopping bug bites instead of raiding the shelves of my local big bookstore or the pages of amazon, I head for my libraries catalogue and the treasure trove to be found in these charity shops.
It keeps the bank balance happy, gives to charity and shows my love to my library. I get to discover new authors, dive into some classics and seek out those new series I may want to invest time into.
Here are my selections and why I choose them:
I went a bit Agatha Christie mad this month. If you haven’t been following I have set up a personal Christie challenge to read through all her Poirot, Marple and Mystery series books. Honestly, with 76 books on that list plus the number of short story collections I just couldn’t afford to purchase her entire collection brand new. Instead I am diving into my libraries extensive collection of both physical, digital and audio books and the occasional lucky find at the charity shops. This month was a lucky month.
Library:
The Big Four (Poirot #4)
Appointment with Death (Poirot #19)
Closed Casket (New Poirot #2)
There is a lot of Poirot in this Haul but I really can’t get enough of the fussy little Belgian and his super crime-solving little grey cells. He is so much fun to read. I am not reading the works in order as for most books there is no need to as there are very few with through-line plots or spoilers for other books so I just read them as I can find them.
An other addition to this haul is Closed casket which is an authorised addition to the Hercule Poirot world written by Sophie Hannah. I am interested to see if they do him justice.
Lastly we have Ordeal by Innocence which was a miniseries earlier in the year. I like reading the original works before diving into a series so had to wait till this became available.
Libby Library App:
Murder at the Vicarage (Marple #1)
The Moving Finger (Marple # 4)
Dead Man’s Folly (Poirot #33)
I have also descended upon the digital shelves of my library and found some gems there too. I will note that I have already read The body in the library recently and own a physical copy so I will not be re-reading the book. Again there is a mix of works from Marple and Poirot as well as the recently adapted for TV, Crooked house. it should be noted that while the addition above says the first three Marple Mysteries, it misses out the 13 Problems short story collection that is officially counted as book two in that series.
Charity Shop Finds:
Murder in Mesopotamia (Poirot #14)
Death on the Nile (Poirot #17)
The Monogram Murders (New Poirot #1)
First I have only just now realised I have appointment with death twice in this haul! Opps! I guess the library copy can be returned as I now own that book! It was a great find with three of the novels being found in one edition. I also found a copy of the first book in Sophie Hannah’s New Poirot series. This compliments my library haul nicely as the first in that series has a number of holds on it so i would have had to wait quite a while to read it.
As you may notice there is also a copy of Night Circus that is not Christie related but I love to annotate my books filling them with my thoughts and feelings. The only copy of Nigh Circus I own is one of the red hardbacks with the clock and hat motifs and I just cant being myself to deface it. Therefore when I saw this almost pristine copy sitting in my local charity shop I had to grab it so I can annotate its pages.
I thought I would attempt my first book haul. What did you think? Should I do more of these? Does this format work in a blog and not on youtube?
I don’t think I will make these monthly as my shopping/borrowing patterns are more random depending on my mood and readathons etc. I noticed a theme with these books and decided that would be fun to talk about. If I spot another theme in my shopping/borrowing should I discuss them?
Fi's Bibliofiles 