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Agatha Christie – Elephants Can Remember | Review

Title: Elephants Can Remember

Author: Agatha Christie

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 224

Rating: 3*/5

Agatha Christie – Elephants Can Remember

This book wasn’t Agatha Christie’s best book, but it’ll do. Even at her worst, she’s better than most, it’s just that this book feels less “alive” than some of her others, probably because she’d been writing Poirot stories for quite a while by this point and so she was probably running out of ideas.

I think part of the problem that I had was that it felt too “cookie cutter”. It was almost a parody of itself because it included all of the tropes that Christie pretty much single-handedly invented, but this also meant that it wasn’t particularly innovative and not worth reading above most of her others.

In fact, I read this book a week or so ago and forgot to post a review until now, but I’m already struggling to remember what it was all about. The main thing that I remember about it is that it has a key on the cover, and I only remember that because that was one of the challenges on the bookshelf scavenger hunt and I had to pass on that one because I didn’t own any.

All in all, this is fine to read if you’re trying to read everything that Christie ever wrote.

Agatha Christie

Click here to buy Elephants Can Remember.

Charles Bukowski – Come On In! | Review

Title: Come On In!

Author: Charles Bukowski

Type: Poetry

Page Count/Review Word Count: 288

Rating: 4*/5

Charles Bukowski – Come On In!

This book is one of several collections that Charles Bukowski prepared to be published after his death, and so if you’ve read any of his work before then you’ll know roughly what to expect. But what’s interesting is that the work here is more introspective than usual, and it gives you an insight into a different side of him as he came to terms with old age and mortality.

Of course, there’s plenty of Bukowski’s wisdom along the way, and the whole book is eminently quotable. It even ends on the line “drink from the well of your self and begin again”, which I’ve seen online a bunch of times. That’s the thing with his work – it sums up life in a way that few other writers have been able to accomplish, and even if you can’t directly relate with the experiences that he talks about, you can damn well relate to the emotion.

Come On In! also has the benefit of being aesthetically pleasing – it looks great whether it’s in your hands or on your bookshelf. It’s produced with a high quality print on the inside and out, and Bukowski’s unique style plays with line breaks in a way that makes it both easy to read, quick to whizz through and attractive on the page. He’s the kind of writer who can make popping zits sound beautiful, although you’re more likely to find a whore or a horse race.