Two sisters - one lifelong fan, one first time reader, analyzing the works of Agatha Christie. Started as our quarantine project to connect across the country. How does Agatha hold up looking through a 2020 lens? Join us as we go through her books. You can read along or just listen and compare to your memory of the books or movies or shows. Intended for a grownup audience with adult language and themes.
Hello out there Sandwich Artists! Quick announcement here from Amanda at Poirot Pod. We are delighted to see that people are still following us after our long hiatus! We wanted to let you know the book we are reading next is“They Came to Baghdad,” in case you want to read it along with us before we release that episode, which we anticipate to be somewhere between 3 and 53 weeks from now. (I just started it and am really enjoying it! ) Shout out to the request for the next book announcement from Selçuk in 2023. You ask, and 2 years later, PoirotPod, sort of, delivers. We do hope to remember to announce the next book at the end of each episode as well as remember to complete the Portia scale, but no promises, as you see how minimally functional we have become in the middle of the night recording these days. Relatedly, you'll be able to rely on continued butchered pronunciation, Selçuk, which I do hope I'm not doing terribly badly at this moment to your name. Special sandwich artist shout out to Trey, Selçuk, Alejandro, Chawna, Kat, Science Teacher, Aisha, and the various scammy porn bot accounts that have reached out to our email. We diligently check that account every 9 to 24 months, and are legit so happy to see your emails! Side note, I am desperately missing the original royalty free intro music we used, so if anyone out there is fluent in Riverside, which is the new app where the corporate monsters have moved us to these days, and knows how to fix it, please let us know! Yours in crime, PoirotPod!
We're back! This excellent book includes so many siblings: Patrick and Julia, Pip and Emma, Lettie and Lottie... not to mention actual gays and a cat! Tune in to discover Amanda seems to have inexplicably grown up in the 30s while Portia grew up in the 80s.
Just your typical Agatha Christie discussion: "I did not realize there was titties in this story... I would have been way more interested!" Is "buttocks" a great word? Vote now at poirotpodcast@gmail.com.
Labouuuuuuurs. The sleepy episode.
Recorded over 2 months, we finally finished this episode about classic Agatha Christie plot with a murder during a weekend at a country house, which Portia hated and Amanda thinks Agatha changed her mind about the victim halfway through writing it.
Choose your own tagline: (1) Seven degrees of pronunciation (2) Nofret goes to Hooters (3) Egyptians: they're just like us! (4) Possibly Agatha Christie's best book? (5) Believe it or not this episode was longer and more offensive before editing
F*ck around and I'll give you a rond de jambe...
TW: Suicide attempt. Text or call 988 or go to 988lifelife.org for help and resources. A great book, a ridiculously long episode.
A very good Agatha Christie! High on the reading list if you're asking. Discussion featuring: should you poop at your friend's house?, Portia's masterclass in kissing, Miss Marple says calm your tits (not really), so Portia rants about boobs. Amanda supports her, like a bra. Portia revels in schadenfreude, and Amanda gives a Spangles retraction. Resources: Heavy boobs: https://youtu.be/aZx5zfkG6oU Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo: https://youtu.be/9YaNKBmRNvY Spangles: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spangle
Special episode! We interview Ann Claire about her new Agatha Christie-themed murder mystery, available Nov 1st. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/690689/dead-and-gondola-by-ann-claire/.
Just your typical Body In The Library discussion: basketball, abortion, and schpangles. Check out poirotscore.com -- tell 'em we sent you? Have a Poirot Pod drinking game? Let us know the rules at poirotpodcast@gmail.com. Big preview!! We will be reviewing and interviewing the author of Dead and Gondola: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/690689/dead-and-gondola-by-ann-claire/ Pre-order your copy now! Unless we think it sucks after we read it....... duhn duhn DUHHHHH! Find soon on Poirot Pod.........
Another in-person special episode, featuring poor audio quality, Sushi (the cat), a musical interlude, and a much overdue catch-up on the Portia scale!
We're back with a special episode discussing this Agatha Christie-inspired book: "OMG who's looking at my nipples?!"
A very familiar plot set up, very gay episode.
Love squares, feigning modesty, and failing at micromachines-ing.
The best Poirot novel yet! Discussion featuring: grief responses, the fog/enchantment of being in love with a wasteperson, sexy Colins, and.... hiccups! Check out the referenced episode of Hidden Brain that Amanda uses to justify her constant interrupting here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5vs3ElMqArPBSUerYoF2Zc?si=sAqclEpzQW2emJZcKNjgYw&utm_source=copy-link
Racism, sepia tone d*ck pics, and vigilante justice. Featuring guest star, B! *Spoilers for the movies Seven and Identity.
Welcome to a special episode about this fantastic Agatha Christie inspired modern book (with spoilers!).
What if Miss Marple was the murderer? This book is a masterpiece--Christie at her best--and we discover: mess with Lord Whitfield, get smoted. ***The next episode will be a special discussion of the Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman, with spoilers, so hurry up and read it!***
This special holiday murder is solved by false-mustache-delivery.net overnight shipping! Bonus gift of pilocarpine eye drops with first mustache order.
No one: . Portia and Amanda: Let's live google the Island of Rhodes, Rhode Island, Rhodesia and the name Rodas.
Two sisters - one lifelong fan, one first time reader, analyzing the works of Agatha Christie. Started as our quarantine project to connect across the country. How does Agatha hold up looking through a 2021-2022 lens? Join us as we go through her books. You can read along or just listen and compare to your memory of the books or movies or shows. Intended for a grownup audience with adult language and themes.
Poirot Pod is back! We welcome you back with discussion including a discussion of Guy Fawkes, "air" "quotes," what it means to be hairy at one's heel, and golfing as self-care. We also recommend (unsponsored. so far...) bookaudio.online for our listener-listener-readers.
A great book (which Amanda hated) featuring both Poirot and Colonel Race, and Agatha Christie taking (apparently obvious) shots at romance author Elinor Glyn. Portia shouts "boobs!" while Amanda faces her feeling for butch Maggie Smith in the 1978 adaptation of the film. Many questions come up including: if you are Bernie Madoffing--does that make you boulder-pushy?
This episode was recorded half in-person, and the book HAS A DOG which seems to be the main reason Amanda loves it, while Portia is forced to identify with the victim before the murder, so that loses the book points on the Portia Scale. Agatha Christie falls on the right side of colorism (for a change!) but uses marginalization of women to manipulate us (it worked). Bobby gets a sandwich while watching home improvement shows, and Portia recommends two new books: The Thursday Murder Club and A Study in Scarlet Women. Also, farewell to Hastings?!?!
This book is murder in a bottle, featuring a Scooby-Doo gang of all our fav detectives solving the murder of a mephistophelian poseur during a bridge game. It registered only a 6 on The Portia Scale, but Amanda thinks it's peak Poirot and thinks would be a great first book to introduce a new reader to Agatha Christie. The episode is super rambling with "Bobby got a sandwich" tangents including: mercury retrograde, boobs, challenging conversations about language in the context of African American Vernacular English, appropriation, code switching, racism, and white supremacy. We occasionally remember to discuss the plot, which brilliantly features the character of Mrs. Oliver as a stand in for Christie herself, as a vehicle for both self-depreciating humor and jabs at the audience.
Hercule & Arthur go to WhiteCastle to catch a (faux) serial killer. Hastings and Poirot both shine in this ingenious plot which is not, in fact, poo poo pants. Also Portia Scale catch up and a Rupert Grint tangent.
The Mystery of the Missing Episode! We recorded this back in the summer, but somehow missed it in publishing. The book is bringing big Chimneys-sequel energy with hilarious writing, questionable plot elements, and a realistic love story.
Special In-Person episode #thankyouvaccines !!! This book is another murder in a bottle (you gotta rub me the right way) for which Oedipus is *not* a good analogy. Could you reunite with an ex without knowing it? Poirot is a mentor and not an a**hole again (yay), but the villain has been catch-me-if-you-can-ing for a *real* long con and we don't buy the twist/solution. Then, we, like, introduce, like, Elocution Pod!
This book is a Poirot-y Poirot mystery that casts him as a more likable mentor, but leaves Portia and Amanda at odds on who conspired in the murder. Our discussion features searching for the terms "Québécois" and "bottle episode," as well as a discussion of penis bees. This episode's "Bobby got a sandwich" is "Lady Horbury does some more coke."
This episode's conversation got us to come up with the... *Parker Pyne Fan Fiction Contest! Email your modern Parker Pyne story to poirotpodcast@gmail.com! What are the modern reasons for discontentment, and how would you fix them in a PP way?* This second half of the book is Parker Pyne ROAD RULES, where Ms. Christie seems to have lost interest in the agency, so PP goes on the road and does Poirot and Satterthwaite impressions, complete with racism. Featuring just your typical Agatha Christie convo: e.g. "may I direct your attention to my genitals?," "The Mystery of the Boob Static," and murderers wearing I Heart Strychnine T-shirts.
Parker Pyne pod! Covering the 1st half of Parker Pyne Investigates. Topics include: different racism edits in different versions, including Asian fetishism, is sneezing the covidtimes farting? getting one's groove back: can you get healthy on your own, or do you have to engage in life to move forward? We discuss PP's approach to manipulation instead of therapy to address "unhappiness," consent, cat fortnite, the monotony of responsibility that the pandemic has taught us, and how PP is a precursor to media including Fantasy Island and The Game (featuring Michael Douglas and/or Keaton).
The redemption of Hercule! Agatha and Amanda are both back on Team Poirot in this masterful, dark-*ss book which is a reverse Rodger Aykroyd, and future-reverse And Then There Were None featuring Italian stereotypes. The "Bobby got a sandwich" nonsense tangents in this episode features spoilers for Knives Out, discussion of antepenultimate syllables and other (mis)pronouncing, the sexiness of various languages (with wildly offensive impressions and generalizations), Raymond Burr/Perry Mason. And we catch up on the Portia Scale.
In this episode, we discuss this delightful lesser known mystery, which brings up privilege, class, and birth order (spoiler: younger siblings are murdering psychopaths). Portia and Amanda get distracted by their discomfort with domestic service and then by Michelle Obama's flawlessness, while the protagonists get distracted by sexy murderers. We get on track to discover that Evans made the sandwich, but of course we don't find that out until later because patriarchy.
We are back with Hercule Poirot in this 1933 book! In terms of plot, it is brilliant while Poirot isn't. In terms of writing, Portia's 1980's version had racism and anti-semitism which were edited out of the 2012 version Amanda listened to. Follow along as we get into Vulcan brain stabs, Fibber Mcgee and Molly, Kimmy Schmidt, and American dialects.
Stressed about democracy? Ignore reality and listen to the rambling conclusion to our discussion on the Mr. Quin stories, we discuss remembering choreography years later, the idea of death as a character and even lover, outsiders to love being insightful observers, the idea of one true love, and the gender spectrum. Amanda says "whoa" like Joey from Blossom a lot as we manage to compare the ideas of Mr. Quin to every 90s movie ever.
This second episode discussing the Mysterious Mr. Quin was recorded in November of 2020 (we were so young and innocent then)... The stories of The Man from the Sea through The Dead Harlequin follow Mr. Satterthwaite as he steps into his role and the discussion gets into f*ckboys, finding love in your 40s, sister violence, the dangers of being too beautiful, Rihanna, violence of men against women, and the mystical insight of artists.
We are excited to have a guest on this episode, our mother! We discuss this short story collection as well as the mechanisms of different poisons, "the quiet assurance" of white privilege, problematic Swedes, and Pamela comes in with a counterpoint to our cousin love stance?
Agatha Christie forays into the supernatural in this fascinating collection of stories (Amanda's Favorite!) which has a singularly positive portrayal of feminine traits in a man and brings up themes of the magic of non-binary gender! Listen to Amanda struggle to pronounce Satterthwaite as we wonder about the relationship of Mr. Quin and Mr. S to Mr. Snuffleupagus, Joe Black, the Sixth Sense, and Ed Norton/Tyler Durden. If Tommy and Tuppence are Kimmy Schmidt, The Mysterious Mr. Quin is the Good Place!?!? Apologies for the timing sync issues, hopefully this is the last episode with that issue!
Recording episode 13 during 2020 retrogrades and before the US election was called leads to a weird timing delay in the recording about halfway through the episode (apologies for that to our decades of listeners)... in which Portia TALKS ABOUT SEXUALITY and brazenly ignores the 'u' in aunt. Agatha Christie has updated her stance on consanguinity in this great mystery that brings up frienemies and envy within partnerships. Come hate-listen as Portia and Amanda spiral into their past marriages, and how Agatha Christie suggests the key to a happy marriage is to settle.
We start this episode by catching up on The Portia Scale, then: Poirot gets conned, Hastings glows up, questions about Agatha's criminal justice framework, toddler zoomies, and plans for American(s) In England.
After a couple month recording hiatus, Poirot Pod is back! We discuss how the obvious suspects did it in a very non-obvious way, Agatha Christie's evolving stance on killing murderers, and spinstererotisism (or lack thereof).
More Tommy and Tuppence! Is the Blitz the McDowell's of London? Also randomly featuring spoilers for "The Prestige".
The Problem with the Swedish Chef: Tuppence manifests a secret spy detective agency, Portia manifests a microphone, and Tommy and Tuppence try on the personalities of different fictional detectives. Featuring: lots of pod wine, terrible accents, and a giggling fit.
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