More books~

For some reason, I couldn't log onto blogspot last night.... But I do have a fairly lot of books to tell you about(:

The first one is the only non-fiction one, called "Mom always loved you best", and you can easily guess, it's about sisters. I thought it was a really interesting read, since it seemed to be rather accurate in describing the nature of sisterhood. But what I thought was interesting, was this short sentence (or was it a paragraph?) talking about how brothers would stay in contact much often if they had a sister (or something to that effect). It actually explains why last year, when I wanted to invite three of my friends for a birthday dinner (they're brothers), I had to ask each one of them personally, even though I asked them to "please tell your brothers as well".

But I do wonder, how often do my sisters and I really talk? It's mostly on holiday, and then, normally just me and Euphe, since we'll be sharing a room, and we're closer in age (1 year apart ^^). And I really do wonder, and it does hurt me, that Euge gets offended whenever people say she looks like me (the 'metamessage' to use the author's words, is not complimentary).

The other books I read are, in a sense, mysteries, although one is definitely scarier than the other. The two books are "Murder at the Vicarage" by Agatha Christie and "Property of a Lady" by Sarah Rayne.

I don't know how many times I've mentioned it, but I think Agatha Christie is an awesome writer. Her books are logical, yet interesting (there are books I read that depend on some form of implausible coincidence to solve the mystery), and because she wrote in the late 20th century (around the Second World War, if I remember correctly), her books don't have any, well, I can say immoral/explicit descriptions, yet, they always somehow involve love.

Murder at the Vicarage is apparently the first in the Miss Marple series. Although Miss Marple was Agatha Christie's favourite character, I haven't actually read the books about her. There's even an anime based on the Miss Marple series and I don't think I've watched it. For some reason, I prefer the Poirot series...

But this mystery, like all her others is really interesting. When an unpopular figure in the village is shot dead in the Vicar's office, the Vicar is drawn into the mystery (quite naturally). The interesting thing is that the narrative is from the Vicar's point of view (I don't think any of her stories have the detective's point of view, for plot reasons, because if the detective's viewpoint was used, the reader would know the ending too early), and Miss Marple (unlike, I think, Poirot) isn't mentioned very often. She's talked about, and she solves the case, but the book is largely concerned with how the Vicar attempts to solve the case.

The other book, Property of a Lady is a mystery/horror book. I don't normally read horror, but I do like Sarah Rayne's books. This book doesn't have much of a duel plot, since it comes in the form of letters/journals, and is very nicely integrated into the present day (discovering a journal and reading it, for instance). But the book is interesting. The plot twist at the end resulted in a sort of paradigm shift for me, since it changes the nature of some characters drastically, yet if you re-read the relevant sections, you'll see (at least for me), that that was the tone all along, reminding me of how we so often mis-read things.

After reading this book, I searched out an ebook called "The Ingoldsby Legends", which sounds interesting. I'll read it, and get back to you(: