Discussion: ARCHIVED: May 2018 Read: A Is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie by Kathryn Harkup • The Flat Book Society • BookLikes

#1 by: Murder by Death date: 7 years ago discussions stats

A Is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie - Kathryn Harkup
Reading start: 2018-05-01
Reading finish: 2018-05-31

#2 by: Murder by Death date: 7 years ago discussions stats

Welcome to the May buddy read! Let the fun begin! :)

Question for the group: Would you prefer to keep all the discussion in this thread, or would you prefer a few seperate threads to break things up?

Don't forget to turn on notifications.

#3 by: Themis-Athena's Garden of Books date: 7 years ago discussions stats

Reply to post #2 (show post):

Oooh, thanks for the reminder about notifications. Can't count the occasions where I forgot that -- somehow I always think since I've set notifications to "all" for the group, that should automatically be inherited by individual threads ... unless I later specify something else for a given individual thread.

I think the book is short enough for us to start out with one thread ... I suspect we'll be done relatively fast.

#4 by: Elentarri's Book Blog date: 7 years ago discussions stats

One thread should be enough?

#5 by: Elentarri's Book Blog date: 7 years ago discussions stats

I read chapter "A", but ended up skimming through the section dealing with all the Christie plot summaries (too boring).

#6 by: Murder by Death date: 7 years ago discussions stats

Excellent - one thread it is.

@Elentarri: I figured there would be a few that would skim over the AC parts. :)

#7 by: SusannaG - Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady date: 7 years ago discussions stats

I read this last year and enjoyed it thoroughly.

#9 by: Murder by Death date: 7 years ago discussions stats

Reply to post #8 (show post):

No, I don't think so. She's pretty careful not to reveal too much of any AC story - although she does describe quite a few in detail (but not the murderer). If I remember correctly, there are a few chapters where she can't quite avoid the spoilers and she tells you when that's going to happen up front. -- I just checked my old review, and yes, she does warn readers of spoilers, and gives a "go to page XX if you haven't yet read this book" warning for each.

#10 by: Themis-Athena's Garden of Books date: 7 years ago discussions stats

Reply to post #9 (show post):

I love her just a little more for that alone. That's very considerate -- particularly in a book that essentially lives off describing Christie's murder methods!

#11 by: Murder by Death date: 7 years ago discussions stats

I've just finished the B for Belladonna chapter, and while I knew I'd get more out of this re-read, I underestimated how much more. So many of the details had slipped away over the past year - it's strange the things that stick and the things that don't. Pilocarpine sounding like "pile of carp" is one of the things I'd have bet would have stuck, since I love plays on words, but nope - I totally didn't remember that from my first read.

#12 by: Elentarri's Book Blog date: 7 years ago discussions stats

This book gets better as Harkup starts dealing with poisons I'm less familiar with. :) I even read some of the Christie parts - depending on how long they got.

#13 by: Themis-Athena's Garden of Books date: 7 years ago discussions stats

Reply to post #12 (show post):

Success! :D

#14 by: Elentarri's Book Blog date: 7 years ago discussions stats

Reply to post #13 (show post):

LOL I'm still not going to pick up a Christie novel. ;)

#15 by: Themis-Athena's Garden of Books date: 7 years ago discussions stats

Reply to post #14 (show post):

Early days ... :D