Tag: Relationship

Agatha Christie – The Pale Horse | Review

May 16, 2020
Authors A-E (By Surname)Fiction

Title: The Pale Horse

Author: Agatha Christie

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 266

Rating: 3.5/5

This is nowhere near the best of Agatha Christie’s books, but even here when she’s average I guess at best, she’s still better than most other writers. Plus I could be a little biased there because neither Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple appears here, although Ariadne Oliver does and she might well be my favourite of all of Christie’s supporting cast of characters.

I also quite liked the idea of the pale horse and the way that was used as a recurring theme throughout. Christie is great at doing that and we’ve seen her do it throughout her career with the various different books that play with nursery rhymes. This book is like a twist on that I guess, and with the added bonus that Ariadne Oliver is basically just a mouthpiece for Christie to share some of her own thoughts on life as a writer.

What’s kind of funny is that in many ways, she’s more open and honest about her relationship with writing here than she was in her autobiography. She always seemed to think of herself as more of a housewife than as an author, despite the fact that she’s one of the bestselling authors of all time.

So when it comes down to the question of whether or not I’d recommend this one, it really depends. If you’re new to Christie then it probably makes sense to start with one of her more well-known books instead of going for this one. Yeah.

Learn more about The Pale Horse.

Robert Webb – How Not to be a Boy | Review

April 6, 2020
Authors U-Z (By Surname)Non-Fiction

Title: How Not to be a Boy

Author: Robert Webb

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count: 330

Rating: 3.75/5

I was surprised by this one because I didn’t enjoy it as much as I was expecting. I’d heard a lot of really good stuff going into this, but I had a few issues with it. Perhaps that’s not surprising because I’ve always had a strange relationship with him. When I first saw him in Peep Show, I didn’t like him much, but I’ve since come around to have a healthy respect for him, although I prefer David Mitchell.

I think the main thing that hampered my enjoyment here was Webb’s writing style, which is pretty idiosyncratic. Because of that, I think that you’ll either love the way that he writes or it’ll kind of grate on you, which is what happened with me. Still, that was just a minor thing and a matter of personal preference, and not enough for me to recommend against it.

That’s because it is actually a decent little memoir, particularly because of the way that it asks a lot of questions and goes out of its way to confront some of the ways in which our society has inherent biases about the two sexes. I guess you could say it’s pretty woke, and it knows it’s pretty woke, and in many ways that’s the point of it.

So while I didn’t quite enjoy this one as much as I expected to when I was going into it, I still can’t really complain. It was pretty good at doing what it set out to do, and there was also plenty of food for thought too. It’s also pretty dark, at times surprisingly so. Robert Webb has been through a lot and so it’s kind of awesome to see that he came out the other side and was able to turn it into something positive. So there’s that, I guess.

Learn more about How Not to be a Boy.