135 Down, About 114 to Go

With my May 1 deadline looming, I just completed reading "Murder on the Orient Express". That means I've read about 135 short stories, novels, novellas, plays, and novelizations of plays. I now have approximately 114 more to tales to go. It isn't going to happen. My new deadline? December 1, 2011.

Checking In.

I'm still working my way through the collected Agatha Christie works, but have taken a couple of necessary detours on along the way. At first I swore that I would ONLY read Agatha Christie books until the project was finished, and then came November.

Although I am prone to a bit of hyperbole, saying this past holiday season nearly killed me isn't far from the truth. The last few months have been the most challenging and least rewarding months of my retail "career". At the beginning of this descent into hell I had jokingly said that working retail was the modern equivalent to working in a 19th coal mine. By December 24th I truly believed it.

Continuing to work on the Agatha Christie Project, something that I really enjoy, became very difficult. At first reading on my breaks was something to look forward to and provided a much needed escape. Eventually though I just couldn't switch between reading and reality with the ease required. I was too tired to focus on what was happening on the page and really take it in. Facts and plot points evaporated in my brain moments after I read them and the stories lost their impact.

So I set down Dame Agatha and picked up Simon Doonan's autobiographical book "Beautiful People". This short and episodic work took me far too long to read but it helped me through those bleak days. I did manage to read the seasonably appropriate "Murder on Hazelmoor" over my brief 4 day Christmas Holiday I received thanks to a cold and succumbing to sheer exhaustion (most of Boxing Day was spent with me staring glassy eyed into the middle distance).

When I did return to the project I had the grave misfortune to read a novelisation of the play "Black Coffee". To get that bitter taste out of my mouth I read "A Beautiful Blue Death" by Charles Finch. It was a present from my partner and was one of the best gifts I received this year.

I'm now returning to the project with "The Floating Admiral", a book collectively written by The Detective's Club of which Agatha Christie was a member.