Podcasts about vicarage

It's episode 232 and time for us to talk about coming of (old) age!  You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system. In this episode Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray

Before the first horse leaves the start box at Mars Badminton Horse Trials, Nicole Brown sits down with the man behind the questions, Eric Winter. From the lake to the Vicarage Vee, from camera angles to ground conditions, Eric opens up on what really goes into building a Badminton cross-country track, and why obvious doesn't always mean easy. He talks inspiration from places like Luhmühlen International Horse Trials, why he wants riders to bring their very best cross-country horses here, and the balance between education, sport, and entertainment at the highest level. There's also a fascinating look at how the course is wheeled, where seconds are won and lost, and why this year's track might look straightforward... right up until you try to ride it at 570 metres a minute. Highlights Eric Winter on designing Badminton since 2017 Why "obvious" and "easy" are not the same thing The story behind this year's lake complex and Vicarage questions How terrain, footing, and camera angles all shape the final track Why Badminton should reward true cross-country horses Eric on pressure: "Pressure is an honour." Guests Nicole Brown Eric Winter This year's Badminton Diaries are brought to you by: Fairfax Saddles Scientifically designed saddles, bridles, and girths, built to help horses move freely, comfortably, and at their best. Visit Fairfax Saddles EcoVolts Built for life on the move, from walking cross-country tracks to covering every corner of the showground. ecovoltz.co.uk/— please use your existing partner link if you have a direct landing page. Uvex Trusted by top riders worldwide for premium helmets and gloves, combining protection, comfort, and performance. Explore Uvex Equestrian Zebra Products Supplying world-class equestrian brands, from performance tack to rider essentials, trusted across every discipline. Visit Zebra Products U.S. Equestrian Open A new era of championship sport across jumping, dressage, and eventing in the United States. Website: usequestrianopen.org EquiRatings Eventing Podcast: Don't forget to follow us on Instagram and Facebook.

Warning: SPOILERS! “The Protheroe Affair” from the French TV series “Les Petits Meurtes d'Agatha Christie” (or “Agatha Christie's Criminal Games”) moves from the village church to the big-city advertising agency. But Protheroe is still a jerk, murder most foul takes place, and it's up to Inspector Swan Laurence, faithful secretary Marlene, and reporter Alice Avril to puzzle it out.“Agatha Christie, They Watch” reviews the adaptations of Agatha Christie's novels in their order of publication.Teresa Peschel, author of "Agatha Christie, She Watched" and the "International Agatha Christie, She Watched," hosts our livestream. Joining Teresa is her husband, technical adviser, and straight man, Bill Peschel. Together, they are Peschel Press, publisher of intriguing, intelligent, and idiosyncratic books (www.peschelpress.com).HOW TO SEE THIS MOVIE: Available on DVD and Mhz Choice: https://watch.mhzchoice.com/videos/crmngm-c-02007WHERE TO FIND USPeschel Press: www.peschelpress.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/peschel_press/NEXT WEEK:“Murder at the Rectory,” the 1970 German version of “Murder at the Vicorage.” See on YouTube at https://youtu.be/PvDWswtzCRULOOK UP OUR BOOKS“Agatha Christie, She Watched” is our coffee-table sized book and not coffee-table sized ebook collection of Teresa's reviews of Christie's movie and TV adaptations. Agatha Christie, She Watched: https://peschelpress.com/agatha-christie-she-watched/International Agatha Christie, She Watched: https://peschelpress.com/international-agatha-christie-she-watched/DISCLAIMER: FAIR USE. Title 17, US Code (Sections 107-118 of the copyright law) All media in this video is used for the purpose of review and commentary under the terms of fair use. All footage, music and images used belong to their respective owners.Theme music: "Deadly Roulette" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Warning: SPOILERS! Our final look at Agatha Christie's “The Murder at the Vicarage” comes from the 1970 TV version. The subtitles were created by AI, so we'll find out if we can understand the plot. “Agatha Christie, They Watch” reviews the adaptations of Agatha Christie's novels in their order of publication.Teresa Peschel, author of "Agatha Christie, She Watched" and the "International Agatha Christie, She Watched," hosts our livestream. Joining Teresa is her husband, technical adviser, and straight man, Bill Peschel. Together, they are Peschel Press, publisher of intriguing, intelligent, and idiosyncratic books (www.peschelpress.com).HOW TO SEE THIS MOVIE: On YouTube at https://youtu.be/PvDWswtzCRUWHERE TO FIND USPeschel Press: www.peschelpress.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/peschel_press/NEXT WEEK:“Black Coffee” (“Le coffret de laque”), the Christie-penned play with Hercule Poirot. This 1932 version (with AI-translated titles) looks really rough. Like the silent “Secret Adversary” rough. See for yourself on YouTube at https://youtu.be/-f6M3PJqxq8LOOK UP OUR BOOKS“Agatha Christie, She Watched” is our coffee-table sized book and not coffee-table sized ebook collection of Teresa's reviews of Christie's movie and TV adaptations. Agatha Christie, She Watched: https://peschelpress.com/agatha-christie-she-watched/International Agatha Christie, She Watched: https://peschelpress.com/international-agatha-christie-she-watched/DISCLAIMER: FAIR USE. Title 17, US Code (Sections 107-118 of the copyright law) All media in this video is used for the purpose of review and commentary under the terms of fair use. All footage, music and images used belong to their respective owners.Theme music: "Deadly Roulette" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Warning: SPOILERS! The first Miss Marple novel was published 96 years ago, so we're looking at the great Joan Hickson in “Murder at the Vicarage.” How cozy and comforting is this version and how close does it play to the novel? Bill and Teresa will hash it out for you.“Agatha Christie, They Watch” reviews the adaptations of Agatha Christie's novels in chronological order.Teresa Peschel, author of "Agatha Christie, She Watched" and the "International Agatha Christie, She Watched," hosts our livestream. Joining Teresa is her husband, technical adviser, and straight man, Bill Peschel. Together, they are Peschel Press, publisher of intriguing, intelligent, and idiosyncratic books (www.peschelpress.com).HOW TO SEE THIS MOVIE: Available on DVD and Amazon Prime through a second Britbox subscription.WHERE TO FIND USPeschel Press: www.peschelpress.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/peschel_press/NEXT WEEK:“Murder at the Vicarage,” the 2004 version starring Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple, Mark Gatiss as Ronald Hawes, Derek Jacobi as Colonel Protheroe, and Jane Asher as Mrs. Sylvia Lester. LOOK UP OUR BOOKS“Agatha Christie, She Watched” is our coffee-table sized book and not coffee-table sized ebook collection of Teresa's reviews of Christie's movie and TV adaptations. Agatha Christie, She Watched: https://peschelpress.com/agatha-christie-she-watched/International Agatha Christie, She Watched: https://peschelpress.com/international-agatha-christie-she-watched/DISCLAIMER: FAIR USE. Title 17, US Code (Sections 107-118 of the copyright law) All media in this video is used for the purpose of review and commentary under the terms of fair use. All footage, music and images used belong to their respective owners.Theme music: "Deadly Roulette" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Warning: SPOILERS! In the second go-round for TV's Miss Marple, Geraldine McEwan looks back at the young man she left behind during World War I. We also get Derek Jacobi (“Brother Cadfeld,” “I, Claudius”) playing the nasty Col. Protheroe; Mark Gatiss (“The Big Four,” “Sherlock”) as a young Rev. Hawes, and Rachael Stirling (“Five Little Pigs,” “The Detectorists”) as Rev. Clement's wife. How does this version compare with the 1986 version and is it better or worse? Bill and Teresa will hash it out for you.“Agatha Christie, They Watch” reviews the adaptations of Agatha Christie's novels in their order of publication.Teresa Peschel, author of "Agatha Christie, She Watched" and the "International Agatha Christie, She Watched," hosts our livestream. Joining Teresa is her husband, technical adviser, and straight man, Bill Peschel. Together, they are Peschel Press, publisher of intriguing, intelligent, and idiosyncratic books (www.peschelpress.com).HOW TO SEE THIS MOVIE: Available on DVD and Amazon Prime through a second Britbox subscription.WHERE TO FIND USPeschel Press: www.peschelpress.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/peschel_press/NEXT WEEK:“The Protheroe Affair,” the 2016 French version from “The Little Murders of Agatha Christie.”LOOK UP OUR BOOKS“Agatha Christie, She Watched” is our coffee-table sized book and not coffee-table sized ebook collection of Teresa's reviews of Christie's movie and TV adaptations. Agatha Christie, She Watched: https://peschelpress.com/agatha-christie-she-watched/International Agatha Christie, She Watched: https://peschelpress.com/international-agatha-christie-she-watched/DISCLAIMER: FAIR USE. Title 17, US Code (Sections 107-118 of the copyright law) All media in this video is used for the purpose of review and commentary under the terms of fair use. All footage, music and images used belong to their respective owners.Theme music: "Deadly Roulette" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Are Agatha Christie's stories as chaste as they seem? Support the podcast by joining the Shedunnit Book Club and get extra Shedunnit episodes every month plus access to the monthly reading discussions and community: shedunnitbookclub.com/join. Books mentioned in this episode:— Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence— A Question of Proof by Nicholas Blake— There's Trouble Brewing by Nicholas Blake— End of Chapter by Nicholas Blake— The Sad Variety by Nicholas Blake— Autobiography by Agatha Christie— The Plumed Serpent by DH Lawrence— Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence— The White Peacock by DH Lawrence— Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie— The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie— The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie— The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie— They Do it with Mirrors by Agatha Christie— What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw! by Agatha Christie— Double Sin by Agatha Christie— "The Herb of Death" by Agatha Christie— A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie— The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side by Agatha Christie— A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie— Nemesis by Agatha Christie— Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie— "The Tuesday Night Club" by Agatha Christie— Towards Zero by Agatha Christie— The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie— Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie— Lady C: The Long Sensational Life of Lady Chatterley's Lover by Guy Cuthbertson To be the first to know about future developments with the podcast, sign up for the newsletter at shedunnitshow.com/newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zzz . . . Drift off to this snoozy reading of Agatha Christie's "The Murder at the Vicarage" zzz For an ad-free version of Sleepy, go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/sleepyradio⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and donate $2! Or click the blue Sleepy logo on the banner of this Spotify page.  Awesome Sleepy sponsor deals: GreenChef: GreenChef.com/50sleepy and use code "50sleepy" to get fifty percent off your first month, then twenty percent off for two months.  Avocado: AvacadoGreenMattress.com/SLEEPY for 15% off.  Quince: Go to Quince.com/sleepy for free shipping and 365-day returns BetterHelp: Visit BetterHelp.com/SLEEPY today to get 10% off your first month. ButcherBox: Sign up at butcherbox.com/sleepy and use code "sleepy" OneSkin: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code SLEEPY at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.oneskin.co/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ #oneskinpod GhostBed: Go to GhostBed.com/sleepy and use promo code “SLEEPY” at checkout for 50% off! Shopify: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at Shopify.com/otis Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What a delight to talk to laura thompson about Agatha Christie. Above all, this episode was fun. Laura really does know more than anyone about Agatha and we covered a lot. What did Agatha Christie read? What did she love about Shakespeare? Was she pro-hanging? Why so much more Poirot than Marple? Why was she so productive during the war? We also talked Wagner, modern art, the other Golden Age writers, nursery rhymes, TV adaptations, poshness, nostalgia, Mary Westmacott, and plenty more. TranscriptHENRY OLIVER: Today I am talking to the very splendid Laura Thompson. All of you will know Laura's Substack. She has also written books about the Mitfords, heiresses, Lord Lucan, many other subjects, and most importantly today, Agatha Christie, who died 50 years ago. And there's a new book coming from Laura about Agatha Christie's 1926 disappearance.Laura, welcome.LAURA THOMPSON: So lovely to be here, Henry. I'm such a fan of your Substack, as you know.OLIVER: Well, same. Same. This is a mutual admiration call.THOMPSON: Well, thank you. Well, that's what we like.Christie's Favorite WritersOLIVER: Now tell me, what did Agatha Christie like to read?THOMPSON: Oh, a lot the same as us. I discovered she was a huge fan of Elizabeth Bowen, as we are. And Nancy Mitford, Muriel Spark. But her big love really was Dickens. She absolutely adored Dickens. I mean, she grew up in a house full of books, you know, and she wrote a screenplay of Bleak House for which she was handsomely paid. And it was never—I know, don't you long to know what that was like? Can you imagine—OLIVER: We've lost it? We don't have the typescript?THOMPSON: I've never seen it. I mean, maybe—I don't know whether it exists somewhere. But I just wonder how she tackled it, what she did. But yes, so that happened. And of course, Shakespeare, as we know from her books, which are full of subliminal and—I mean, you kind of notice them, but you don't have to.OLIVER: Yes. There's Shakespeare in every book?THOMPSON: No, but it's there, particularly Macbeth, which I suppose figures.OLIVER: Yeah.THOMPSON: Like The Pale Horse is completely Macbeth themed. And when I was a kid reading them, I think she really—Tennyson she uses a lot—she affected my reading in a good way.OLIVER: She sent you back to Shakespeare and the poets?THOMPSON: Well, sent me to them as a kid, probably. And also, there's a lot of Bible in her books, as I'm sure you've noticed.OLIVER: Yes. Yes.THOMPSON: Very easy facility with quoting the Bible.Christie and ShakespeareOLIVER: Now, what did she learn from Shakespeare? Because she clearly knows the plays in detail. She sees them a lot. She reads them. She and he are, I think, quite good plotters.THOMPSON: Is she even better than he is?OLIVER: Well, let's not get into that. But there is a sort of, in a funny way, a kind of affinity between them as writers.THOMPSON: That's so interesting.OLIVER: What do you think she learned from him?THOMPSON: Tell me how you—how you see that.OLIVER: Well, do you know that Margaret Rutherford adaptation, which probably you don't like and I do—THOMPSON: Go on.OLIVER: It's called Murder Most Foul, isn't it?THOMPSON: Yes.OLIVER: And there's something about the way that they can both walk the line between the sort of dark and deadly and the histrionic. Margaret Rutherford can't walk that line, but Agatha Christie can, right?THOMPSON: That's really interesting.OLIVER: And Miss Marple could come onstage in a couple of the plays. She's not so far off from being a Queen Margaret or some—in her angry moments maybe, do you think?THOMPSON: More rational, maybe.OLIVER: Much more rational.THOMPSON: Not so mad. Well, she's not mad, Margaret, is she? But she's upset.OLIVER: She starts off as a much sort of nastier character—Murder at the Vicarage, right?THOMPSON: Yes, she does. She was more acidic and then gradually—OLIVER: Waspish.THOMPSON: Waspish, and sort of mellowed. I see what you mean. And almost in the way that she calls herself—although that's obviously not Shakespeare—calls herself Nemesis.OLIVER: And the sense of atmosphere.THOMPSON: Yes, and the way they're structured. That's not necessarily just true of Shakespeare, but there is this sort of act three entanglement and this beautiful act five resolution that goes on with a soliloquy, I suppose.OLIVER: And some people think they both get confused in act four, but that's obviously not true, that this is the real mess of the plot. I think she might have learned quite a lot from Shakespeare, right?THOMPSON: That's really interesting. But, you know, the way she writes about Shakespeare in her letters to her second husband, Max, because when she was living in London during the war and almost at her most productive—I mean, her productivity levels are insane. And hitting every ball for six, really, you know: Towards Zero, Five Little Pigs, a couple of Westmacotts, which I'm sure we'll talk about. But she spent a lot of time going on her own to see Shakespeare.She's very—I hope I'm right in saying this—she's very sort of Ernest Jones [CB1] in her approach. She doesn't regard them so much as the products of words on a page; she regards them as rounded characters. Why were Goneril and Regan the way they were? What's wrong with Ophelia? You feel like saying, “Well, whatever Shakespeare wanted it to be,” but she sees them in that way. And Iago particularly—OLIVER: Yes.THOMPSON: —is the one that gets her. Yes. In one of her, I better not say which, but a major, major novel.And the book that she wrote under the name Mary Westmacott, The Rose and the Yew Tree, which I think might well be her best book of all. I think—well, I'll just say she wrote these six books under a pseudonym, Mary Westmacott. People call them romantic novels; that's sort of the last thing they are. And they're very, very interesting mid-20th-century human condition novels, and they're full of lots of stuff that she had to distill for the detective fiction. And she talks a lot about Iago in The Rose and the Yew Tree really interestingly, I think.Christie on Shakespeare?OLIVER: Now, Max said she should just write a book about Shakespeare, all this Shakespeare all the time. But she didn't. Why?THOMPSON: No. I don't think she ever liked being told what to do.OLIVER: [laughs]THOMPSON: His letters to her are quite annoying, aren't they?OLIVER: Yes, yes. I've only read what's in your book, but yes, I didn't warm to him.THOMPSON: I'm glad because people do. He gets a really good press even though he was unfaithful. But it worked, the marriage, because they both got what they wanted from it. But he said that, yes, and she says, “Oh no, they're just thoughts for you.” I don't think she would've felt the need, somehow. I think she liked saying things in her own more oblique way.OLIVER: Save it for the novels.THOMPSON: Yes, she's a great mistress of the indirect, I think, really. The way she writes about Macbeth in The Pale Horse, which I think is a really underrated novel, including thoughts on how it should be staged, which are really interesting and very, very good. I think she would've preferred to do that and use it to her ends.And of course, she has an incredibly powerful sense of evil, which I suppose is also in Shakespeare. Hers is a Christian sensibility, I mean, no question. People never talk about that, but it really is.OLIVER: Was she pro hanging?THOMPSON: Well, I think she took a kind of utilitarian approach that the innocent must be protected. And she took a view that if you've killed once, it becomes very easy to kill again because something in you has shifted, so you become a danger to the community. So I suppose in that sense she was.I mean, Miss Marple was. She's quite—“I really feel quite glad to think of him being hanged.”OLIVER: It's one of her most striking lines.THOMPSON: It is, isn't it?OLIVER: Yes.THOMPSON: So I suppose she was. I mean, I suppose she was. You know, she's very modern, she's very subtle in her thinking, but at the same time, she is a late Victorian product of her society. Yes.Dickens and Christie's FamilyOLIVER: Now, you mentioned this Bleak House script. She loved Bleak House. Do we know what she loved about it? It's obviously the first detective novel. Are there other factors?THOMPSON: You are going to know—this is when I'm going to start coming across as an idiot. Is it written before The Moonstone? Yes, of course it is.OLIVER: I think so. Yes. Yes. It's the first time there's a police detective in a major English novel.THOMPSON: Okay. I think she—do you know, this is a really good question. I don't actually know why she loved Dickens so much. She grew up—she had that rather intriguing upbringing whereby she had two much older siblings, a sister who was 11 years older, a brother who was 10 years older. Father died when she was 11.So she grew up incredibly close with a really rather intriguing mother, Clara. This is in the house at Torquay. And her mother encouraged her in a way that, it seems to me, quite unusual for the time and for the class to which she belonged. Because it was never deemed that it would interfere with her marrying and leading a more conventional life. But she always wanted to express herself creatively. And I think her mother possibly was a frustrated creative. I don't know. She had a lot of go in her.And whether it was just something she read with—I think anything she did at an early age with her mother would've made a huge impression on her. I think what you read when you're that age, you never quite—I never read Dickens at that age, so I've never quite got the habit.OLIVER: But if she's born in 1890, presumably her mother is just about old enough to have been alive when Dickens was alive. And so she's got a somewhat direct—THOMPSON: Yes, she was.OLIVER: You know, it's sort of back to the original culture of it, as it were.THOMPSON: Yes. Isn't that extraordinary?OLIVER: Yes. Yes. It's crazy to think. So she must have taken it in maybe in a more original way, somehow?THOMPSON: Possibly. Certainly Tennyson, I get that feeling, because her mother wrote this rather leaden sub-Tennysonian poetry. [laughter] It's like Tennyson on the worst day he ever had, but worse than that.OLIVER: But worse, yes.THOMPSON: Yes. And she wrote poetry like that, the mother, which is really rather sweet and touching to read. And obviously she would've been alive at the same time as Tennyson. So, yes, I'd never, ever thought of that before. Isn't that extraordinary? I mean, they went to see Henry Irving.OLIVER: Yes.THOMPSON: Yes. And yet she feels—it just amazes me, this—so I'm leaping slightly here, but this 21st-century halo of cool that she has around her, Agatha Christie. [laughter] I know, it's awful in a way, but the way she can be reinterpreted—that is a bit Shakespearean, in a way.I don't mean to make extravagant claims, but there's a sort of translucent quality to what she writes that means that people can impose and pull it and twang it and know that she won't let them down, as we are seeing constantly at the moment.Art and MusicOLIVER: Yes. No, I agree. Other arts—we know about all this, she loves reading. What music did she enjoy, for example? Did she like paintings?THOMPSON: Yes, she loved paintings. She liked modern art. She was painted by Kokoschka. It's very good. And she writes about modern art. In Five Little Pigs, the painter in that is a modern artist.And then music was her grand passion. I mean, music was her original career choice, as you know, of course. She must have had a good voice. She thought she could make a career of it. And she could play the piano. Beautiful piano at Greenway, it's still there.And they used to do this thing—I think it's a lovely idea—as a family. They would fill in what they called the book of confessions, and it would be questions like, “What is your state of mind? If not yourself, who would you be?” And at the age of 63, which is the last time she filled it in, she wrote, “An opera singer.” So that was still what she would've dreamed of doing. She loved Wagner very, very deeply.OLIVER: Okay. Interesting.THOMPSON: And there's a Wagner theme in a very late book, Passenger to Frankfurt, the one that everybody hates except me. And music, I mean, as a girl when—so her voice wasn't strong enough for opera. I think her ultimate—same as I grew up wanting to be a ballet dancer, I think her ultimate would've been to sing Isolde at Covent Garden.And in some of her short stories and in her first Mary Westmacott, which is called Giant's Bread, which is about a musician—and she really inhabits this character, Vernon, and it's all about modern music. And somebody who knew about this stuff, which I don't, told me, “No, she knew. She knew what was going on. She knew about the trends.” This is in the late twenties.And she always went to Beirut, and that was her real, real, real passion. She was one of those restlessly creative people. And her mother, God bless her, encouraged it.Christie's UniquenessOLIVER: What is it that distinguishes her from the other detective fiction writers? Because she doesn't, to me, feel—she's obviously part of this whole generation, this whole golden age, whatever you want to call it, but she doesn't feel the same as them somehow.THOMPSON: No.OLIVER: What is that?THOMPSON: Do you think it's her simplicity, that distilled simplicity that she has? She doesn't write linear; she writes geometric, I always think.OLIVER: Tell me what you mean.THOMPSON: Well, if you think of a book, the one I admire the most, as I constantly go on about, which is Five Little Pigs—you think about the amount of stuff that's in that book. It's a meditation on art versus life. The solution is unbelievably intriguing, I think. There's a whole family psychodrama in there. And every move of the plot, she's also moving on a—every move of the plot is impelled by a revelation of character. So plot and character are utterly intertwined, distilled together.I don't think any of the others can do that. I think Dorothy Sayers would take twice as many pages. And she'd dot every i and cross every t, and she couldn't bear loose ends or anything, could she? And she liked to reveal her knowledge of other things, almost to—I think the others like you to know that they're a bit better than the genre, maybe. Their detectives are superhuman, almost; wish-fulfillment man, almost.She doesn't do that with Poirot. He's just pure omniscience, really, plus a few tics and traits and, you know, mustache. I think it's that distillation and simplicity and the way she inhabits the genre in a way that the others don't quite do. And at the same time, she's redefining it from within.OLIVER: There's something as well, I think, about—she gets past the kind of Sherlock Holmes model in a different way. They still all have a bit of an overreliance on that, maybe.THOMPSON: Yes.OLIVER: Whereas Poirot in, what is it? In something like, is it Murder in the Mews? Very sort of Sherlock and Watson—THOMPSON: Yes.OLIVER: —kind of dynamic. But within, I don't know, two or three novels, that's gone, and he's Poirot as we know him, as it were.THOMPSON: Yes, yes.OLIVER: And she kind of, as you say, makes it her own thing and goes off in new directions.Christie and the TheaterTHOMPSON: Yes. She's sort of conceptual and the others aren't quite, I think. She doesn't do—she does something completely different with the whole concept of what a solution is, it seems to me. She doesn't—it's not Cluedo, is it? It's not, there's six of them, and eventually it has to be one of them; however many tergiversations or however you say that word, you sort of know that. Whereas with her, it's: it's nobody, or it's everybody, or it's the policeman, or it's a child, or there's something bigger and bolder going on.And she writes—I think she writes very theatrically. I think she writes scenically. I think she's incredibly good at character and action. That scene where you know the girl's a thief because Poirot leaves out 23 pairs of silk stockings, and he goes back in the room and there's 19 or something like that, tells you everything. It's all in there.OLIVER: The solution to 4.50 from Paddington, which we shan't reveal, but—THOMPSON: That's Cards on the Table. But what I mean is, she's given us a little scene that tells us all we need to know about that person, really: a sort of timid thief who can't resist—OLIVER: Yes, but that's what I'm saying. At the end of 4.50, the solution is staged.THOMPSON: Oh, sorry. Yes.OLIVER: It is literally a little re-creation of the drama, if you see what I mean.THOMPSON: Yes, I do. Sorry, Henry. Yes, absolutely.OLIVER: No, no. We're crossed wires.THOMPSON: Yes, yes, yes.OLIVER: But she is very theatrical, yes.THOMPSON: No, you are absolutely right. That's a reenactment.OLIVER: Of something that was seen almost like in a—you know, the whole thing is very—THOMPSON: Yes, yes. Well, she was a great—I mean, obviously Shakespeare, but she was a great lover of the theater as a medium. And of course, she wrote plays, as we know, which I think are far weaker than her books, myself.OLIVER: Even The Mousetrap?THOMPSON: Especially. [laughter] When did you last see it? Or have you not—OLIVER: I've seen it once. I've seen it—you know, I don't know, before I had children, a long time ago. And I thought it was great. It was a lot of fun. The ending of act one, when someone opens a door and they say, “Oh, it's you.” It's very dramatic moments. You don't like it?THOMPSON: No, I think you're right. I wouldn't mind seeing it done really, really well. There's something strong at the heart of it, that theme that haunts a lot of her books about what happens to children who are unwanted.OLIVER: Yes.THOMPSON: Which is in loads of her—no, not loads. It's in Ordeal by Innocence. It's in Mrs. McGinty. That's, I think, because that happened to her mother. Her mother was given away as a child. Her own mother was a poor widow and gave up her daughter to be raised by her rich sister, which is not—it's not abandonment, but I think—OLIVER: Well, yes.THOMPSON: — it's not great. And I think all these things were absorbed by Agatha as a child. She grew up in what we would today call a house of—I hate this—strong women. I hate that “strong woman” thing, but they were strong women. Her mother was very, you know, as we've said, a sort of driving little person. And the rich grandmother, the poor sister, the dynamic there, they both fed into Miss Marple.And then her older sister, Madge, who was a big personality and actually had a play on in the West End before Agatha did, which I've always thought was extraordinary, just to write a play and have it on in the West End in 1924.And the men were—the father was feckless and charming and a rather grand New Yorker, he grew up as, and then settled in Torquay. And the brother was the Branwell Brontë. [laughter] He ended up a drug addict, which is also a type that feeds into her fiction: the man who could have made something of his life and goes wrong.The TV AdaptationsOLIVER: So all this theatricality in the books is obviously why she adapts so well to TV, and again, a lot of the others don't.THOMPSON: Yes, that's true.OLIVER: How famous would she be now without the TV adaptations?THOMPSON: Well, by 1990, so the centenary, she was a hell of a lot less—and that's really when the Poirots got going, which she never wanted. She never wanted—she didn't really want Murder on the Orient Express. It was only because it came via Lord Mountbatten. I don't know. I don't know because I think they're mostly not very good. I don't know what you think about the adaptations. But maybe that's deliberate, that they're less—if they drove you back to the books, you'd probably get quite a pleasant surprise.OLIVER: It's hard for me to say because I saw them all more or less after I'd finished reading her.THOMPSON: What did you think?OLIVER: I love Joan Aiken—not Joan Aiken, what's she called?THOMPSON: Yes, Joan Hickson is marvelous. Yes, absolutely.OLIVER: Hickson. I think she's just perfect because as you say, the simplicity, the not overstating. The “Pocketful of Rye” episode where she turns up and quotes the Bible, and the vicious older sister is there, and they have that moment. It's all so cleanly done.THOMPSON: Yes, I agree.OLIVER: David Suchet, I quite like him. I think he has those wonderful moments. “I cannot eat these eggs. They are not the same.” I think that's very good. It's very funny, you know, he gets it.THOMPSON: You prefer him in spats and art deco mode to when he became—he became like a de facto member of the House of Atreus by the end, hadn't he? It had gone very, very—OLIVER: I mean, I certainly didn't watch them all, no, no.THOMPSON: No. Well, I sort of had to.OLIVER: Yes, you did.THOMPSON: But I could never get through those short story ones. I don't think I've ever got—OLIVER: The moral sort of doom of it all, yes.THOMPSON: Well, the early ones, when they always had—you could see they'd hired a car for the day. [laughter] And I don't think I've ever got to the end of one of those.But I think—sorry, going back to your question, I think they probably did make a massive difference. You know, they're really, really popular. And whether she would have—what you think her—she might be read as much as somebody like Sayers if it weren't for all those adaptations. But then the fact of all those adaptations tells its own story in a way, because that wouldn't happen to one of the others, as you rightly said.Resurgence and PopularityOLIVER: No, they don't have that quality. And also, she was bigger than them. That's why they picked her, because she was bigger than them anyway.THOMPSON: And simpler. Because when I used to read them at university between the pages of Beowulf or whatever, like porn, [laughter] it was a bit mal vu. You read her for entertainment. But you certainly—I don't think—she's always been admired by a certain kind of French intellectual, hasn't she, for that subtextual quality that she has, that sort of fathomless quality that she has.But when I researched that biography, which I started in 2003, I can remember going on the radio. And names will not be named, but I was like a figure of fun with a couple of other detective writers, quite well known, who just sort of openly mocked me for taking her seriously and more or less said, “Oh yeah, we love her, but she's terrible” kind of thing. “Why are you taking her seriously?” I mean, it was regarded as a bit of a joke to take her seriously.I'm not saying I changed the game or anything like that, but I think there must have been a movement around that time in the early twenty-naughties—whatever the damn thing, decade's called—to start seeing that she is an interplay of text and subtext, facade and undercurrents, and these powerful foundations that underpin her books. Murder on the Orient Express is, you know, “Does human justice have the right to exert itself when legal justice has let it down?”There are these very strong—I think this is part of why she's survived the way she has. We intuit powerful truths underneath the Christie construct, if you like. I always say she's not real, she's true. I think she's incredibly wise about human nature, possibly more than any of them.You take a book like Evil Under the Sun, and there's a femme fatale who's murdered. “Oh, the femme fatale. No man can resist her.” Turns out she can't resist men. She's prey; she's not a predator. And of course, women who are so dependent on their looks and so on, that is what they are. They are prey. They're not predators. They're very, very vulnerable. Just a really small thing like that. And I just think, oh, you're very—there's so much easy wisdom in there somehow.And she deploys it perhaps differently—I mean, Ruth Rendell is wise, but it's very, “I am wise and you're going to pay attention to me.” You know what I mean? It's all very, “I'm very dark and very wise and very,” you know. I love her, but everything's so easy with Agatha. It's so, to coin a phrase, two tier. You can read them and have fun with them. You can read them and there's so much stuff going on underneath, and yet she presents this smooth face. I don't think any of the others are quite that resolved, if you like.Self-AdaptationsOLIVER: Now, you wrote that her own stage adaptations of The Hollow and Five Little Pigs lack the subtlety of the original books, quote, “almost as if Agatha herself did not realize what made them such good books.” How much of her talent do you think was unconscious in that way?THOMPSON: Yes. That's such a good question. I do think that, about those plays, it could have been that she just thought, “That's not what my audiences are going to want from me. They're just going to want to be entertained by”—we know she can do the other thing because of her Mary Westmacott books, where everything is laid out. They're not distilled at all; they're quite the opposite.I think they must have been such a pleasure for her to write because she didn't have to constantly—they're unresolved; they ask questions that don't have to be answered. She could have done that with those plays, I'm sure, but I think she would've thought people aren't coming to see them for that. I think she had a very good opinion of herself, in the best possible way.OLIVER: Hmm.THOMPSON: Like I said to you earlier, she didn't take a lot of notice of anything anybody said to her. Because it is like writing this other little book, the one I've just done about 1926. She was very acclaimed right from the start. I didn't emphasize that enough in the biography. And she was really recognized as very special right from the start.And I think it's extraordinary to me how—it's so difficult for us today, isn't it? We're so at the mercy of “That won't sell, don't do that, blah, blah, blah.” She really did not just plow her own furrow, but create that furrow in a way that you can only compare with, like, Lennon and McCartney. Or whether the time was absolutely right that they let her run, they trusted her to do what she wanted, and because she had the gift of pleasing readers . . .You do really feel, although those books are very tight and taut, you do feel an instinctive ease in what she's doing, an instinctive sort of—there's a kind of liberated—which sounds perverse because they are so controlled, the books. But I always feel she's doing exactly what she wants to do because she knows what it is and she knows how to do it. Because I think, would she be amazed that you and I are having this conversation now? I don't know that she would be, really. What do you think?OLIVER: No, I agree with you. I think she had what Johnson said, the felicity of rating herself properly. I think she knew she was really good.THOMPSON: You might know he'd say it right.OLIVER: Yes. [laughs] But there's a—I think there must have been something about—I think it's in Poirot's Christmas, one of those, where someone gets killed in the night in their bedroom, and they go up. And one of the women says, “Who would've thought the old man had so much blood in him?”And the quotation just sort of occurs to—I think there's quite a lot of that in Christie, right? Things are coming up and it fits. And she's good enough to run on instinct at times.THOMPSON: That's right. That's it. Exactly. That's absolutely right. Like the way she quotes from the—yes, I love the bit when she quotes from the Book of Saul in One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, which is really quite a profound novel about whether—I mean, it's terribly timely—whether it's better to be run by a corrupt capitalist or to let in the radicals. And as I said in the biography, the corrupt capitalist wins on points. But then another element enters, which is what power does to people. And that's when she quotes from the Book of Saul.And it's just like you said, this—an instinctive that she—I do always feel her as an instinctive writer, even though—her notebooks are intriguing because obviously some plots she really has to work away at. And yet they feel felicitous. A coup like The ABC Murders, and she's really—that went through lots and lots of iterations. But what she'll often do is scribble down a line of dialogue, a line of “There they are.” It's the whole—it's not bullet points, which is a loathsome concept. It reminds me of a bee going from flower to flower and knowing exactly which—and she's got this gift of knowing what flowers we're going to need.I sometimes fear I overdo it. I don't want be like one of those people who's writing a PhD on, what was the thing I said on Substack, gynocracy in St. Mary Mead or whatever. It's not—I do think that's a bit overdone these days, the rummaging in the subtext, because she's an interplay. And that's why I write that chapter in the book called “English Murder,” which is about the facade, you know, “smile and smile and be a villain.” And there's nothing more interesting. There's nothing more interesting than murder among classes who are trying to cover things up.And she does that—that's at the heart of golden age murder, I suppose. And I just think she does that better than anybody because she's so all the things we've been talking about. She's so distilled, she's so simple, she's so smooth, she's so instinctive. And she's doing it the way she wanted to do it because of your wonderful Dr. Johnson quote. She knew not to take notice of other people, including her—Quick Opinions on ChristieOLIVER: Should we have—THOMPSON: Yes. Go on.OLIVER: Sorry, sorry. Should we have a quick-fire round?THOMPSON: Please.OLIVER: I will say the name first of a few of her books—THOMPSON: Oh, god.OLIVER: —and then a few other detective writers, and you will just give us your unfiltered opinion: good, bad, ugly, indifferent.THOMPSON: Okay. What fun.OLIVER: You can “nothing” them if you want to.THOMPSON: Okay. [laughter]OLIVER: Hallowe'en Party.THOMPSON: Underrated. Very interesting on sixties counterculture and the effects of societal breakdown, et cetera. What do you think?OLIVER: I think it's a real page turner. I remember reading that for the first time. I loved it. Yes. Nemesis.THOMPSON: I can't keep saying the same thing. Underrated. [laughter] Very interesting philosophy of love in that book, I think. I think it harks back to her first marriage. However badly it turns out, it's better to have experienced it. It's quite a mournful novel.OLIVER: The Mr. Quin—THOMPSON: Oh.OLIVER: Oh, sorry.THOMPSON: No, no. Sorry. You carry on. Marvelous. So inventive, don't you think? Such a clever character.OLIVER: Why didn't she do more of him?THOMPSON: Yes, that would've been good. And she was always interested in the commedia dell'arte. She wrote poems about it as a girl. And the concept of Mr. Quin, yes, as this sort of evanescent figure who's also a moral force, isn't he really? Or—yes, I wish she'd done more. They're marvelous.OLIVER: Towards Zero.THOMPSON: Oh, top notch, don't you think?OLIVER: One of the best.THOMPSON: Yes, I agree. Frightening motive. Very Ruth Rendell.OLIVER: It's very distinct in her. I haven't read all of her novels, but it's very distinct.THOMPSON: But the plot is, again, typical of her because it redefines the word contingent. [laughs] I mean, Dorothy Sayers would be having palpitations. She's very bold and grand like that. “Oh, there's a loose end. Oh, who cares?” You know, I mean, it's so—it just drives along that book, doesn't it? Yes. But I agree with you, one of her best.OLIVER: Death on the Nile.THOMPSON: Quite moving, I think. I think it's one of those ones from the thirties that, again, is talking about love in a way that—I think it just strikes a personal note to me because she was very in love with her first husband, Archie Christie. And he did fall in love with another woman, and it did cause her extreme pain that some people said to me she never quite got over.And I feel that a little bit in that book. There's a shadow of something quite powerful in that book, I think. Again, very, very loose and lovely plot, but powerful. Would you agree? Very good on the place as well, I think, Egypt.OLIVER: I love it. I think the solution is great.THOMPSON: Yes.OLIVER: And it makes a really good film.THOMPSON: It's a great film, yes. Wonderful film.Other Mystery WritersOLIVER: Yes. Okay. A few other detective writers: Michael Innes.THOMPSON: You've got me. I haven't read him. Should I?OLIVER: Oh, I think you will like him. Yes. Try Hamlet, Revenge!THOMPSON: Okay. Okay. Oh, I like it already.OLIVER: Yes, yes, yes. Oh, this is exciting. Gladys Mitchell.THOMPSON: Can't get into her.OLIVER: No.THOMPSON: What do you think? Should I try a bit harder?OLIVER: I read two. I thought they were good. I was not intrigued.THOMPSON: No, somebody told—OLIVER: The ones I read—Spotted Hemlock is a wonderful, like, wow, that's great.THOMPSON: Okay. Okay. Somebody said to me, I know she really—no, I didn't—I read it in a book that she really hadn't liked Agatha Christie, but you know, who knows? All that Detection Club rivalry, you can imagine. But okay, Spotted Hemlock—if I'm going to read one, try that, yes?OLIVER: Yes, that's a great book. Margery Allingham.THOMPSON: Kind of love her, but I never understand her plots. I always feel I'm in a bit of a fog, but she's quite a good writer. Do you think? Or what do you think?OLIVER: She's good at the fog. She's good at that sort of whirligig sense that there's a lot going on—THOMPSON: Yes, whirligig.OLIVER: —and you've got to get to the end before they do, kind of thing.THOMPSON: Also, she had a pub in her sitting room. Now, I like a woman who has a pub in their sitting room.OLIVER: [laughs] E. C. Bentley.THOMPSON: You've got me again, Henry.OLIVER: Oh, The Blotting Book mystery. You'll like this.THOMPSON: Okay. Okay.OLIVER: The other one is not so good, but you'll like that a lot.THOMPSON: Okay.OLIVER: Edmund Crispin.THOMPSON: Didn't get on with him.OLIVER: Why not?THOMPSON: Don't know. Don't know. It sounds like I don't read the men, doesn't it? Which is not the truth at all.OLIVER: I think that's fair enough, isn't it?THOMPSON: Well, I don't know. I don't think anyone's ever come up with a really good reason why women have shone so brightly in this genre. I don't know. Why didn't I—I read that one, the toyshop one [The Moving Toyshop] or whatever. I don't know. I just didn't get on with it.OLIVER: Too glib?THOMPSON: Possibly.OLIVER: Bit flippant, bit sort of funny-funny?THOMPSON: Possibly. I just couldn't quite get hold of it in some way. I don't know.OLIVER: I quite like Edmund Crispin, but I do think he's got a bit of a “he's a very clever boy” about him.THOMPSON: Maybe that's what it was. Maybe that.OLIVER: Something, yes. G. K. Chesterton.THOMPSON: I haven't read Father Brown. Oh, this is awful, isn't it? I'm starting to sound like a radical feminist by accident.OLIVER: [laughs] Maybe that's what you are, Laura. Maybe you just need to admit it. [laughs]THOMPSON: No, it does. It sounds really bad because I do really love almost all the women. I just, I don't know why I haven't read him.Christie and NostalgiaOLIVER: Was Agatha a nostalgia writer?THOMPSON: No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think anyone who was a nostalgia writer would've written At Bertram's Hotel, which is an entire spin on the riff of nostalgia. Really clever. I think that's such a clever book. The way she traps us in her golden age, you know, this phantasmagoria of the re-created golden age. And then she says, “Ha, really fooled you.”I've written about this. I think she moved with the 20th century far more than is realized. I love those Cold War novels she writes about her dislike of ideologies. I love her postwar books about the fragmentation of the hierarchical society. I think she's—well, she's an incidental social historian, as are, I think, P. D. James and Ruth Rendell, but they're much more underlined about it. Again, I'm intrigued what you think. Do you think she is?OLIVER: I think there's definitely some quality, particularly to the Miss Marple stories—as you say, the social history sort of becomes a way of preserving something that's disappearing. One of them, written in the sixties—you can tell me which one—it opens with that description of all the new houses in the village and the mothers who give their children cereal for breakfast. And what sort of a thing is that to give a child? They should have bacon and eggs. Bacon and eggs is a real—you know, and she does have a real something heartfelt and real sense that this part of England is going, and this new thing is coming in.THOMPSON: That's true. That's absolutely true. That's The Mirror Crack'd. And it's—OLIVER: The Mirror, yes, yes.THOMPSON: Yes, and that whole thing of Mrs. Bantry's house has now been bought by a film star and blah, blah, blah. Yes, no, you are absolutely right. I didn't think hard enough before I answered your question.OLIVER: But no, what you said is also true. I can't sort of work out to what extent she regrets it, to what extent it's just useful material for her, you know?THOMPSON: Both. I mean, some of her late books, including Endless Night, I think, which is an incredibly modern book—that whole “me, me, me” culture of “I want, therefore I will have now,” which is written when she was quite an old lady. And then a book like Passenger to Frankfurt, which is—it's a bit sub–Brave New World, but it's very honest and pessimistic about a future—well, the one we are living in, really—full of fear and uncertainty and almost dystopian.She was a realist. You know, she is Miss Marple in a lot of ways. She was a realist in a way that I think a lot of us would find it difficult to be. And her American publishers were often—would sort of say, can she tone this down? Can she not have a young person who's completely evil? Readers want to know, is she going get any therapy? [laughter] And it's so true. There's quite a lot of that going on.She's very clear-eyed. So if she—I'm a bit nostalgic for Blur, do you know what I mean? I mean, you can't help it, in a way, like that brilliant example you give at the start of The Mirror Crack'd. But I would say her image is quite at odds with the reality of her in that way. But the image—OLIVER: And the adaptations don't help with that.THOMPSON: No. No. But at the same time, that Christie image, you know, the gentlewoman, the tea or the eternal bridge party, blah, blah, blah, that has a huge power of its own. So just being too iconoclastic about her, I think, is also a lie. Because I think, again, it's that interplay. She used the image, and the image—I hate the word cozy. I loathe the word cozy, but there's no denying that any book of that kind does have that quality. So I suppose even that's nostalgic in a way.Christie's PoshnessOLIVER: In a way, yes. How posh was she?THOMPSON: Good question. I've been thinking about that a lot. Quite, I would say. Quite grand, with that confidence. Her father really was—as I said, he was a young blade in New York dancing with Jennie Jerome and blah, blah, blah. And then it so happened that he ended up in Torquay, which of course then was very posh. And the fact that when she disappears, she disappears to Harrogate, [laughs] which is like the Torquay of the north.I remember her grandson saying to me, “She dealt with her literary agent. To her, he was staff.” You know, that kind of thing. Her sister, there is a—well, her sister ended up very grand indeed with a huge house up in Cheshire.I think she just had that internal confidence, really. She wasn't—and that there wasn't much money. I mean, there was very little money when she was growing up, as of course you know, but that didn't matter. I mean, her voice is insane. Her voice is, [affecting a posh voice] “Oh, it's lucky it just happens.” [laughter] But yes, there's a part of her that is real late Victorian upper middle class that, again, underpins her books.It's amazing really how broad-minded and cosmopolitan she was. But possibly, I mean, possibly that does—she was—you know, when she disappeared, she was described in foreign newspapers as an Anglo-American, the embodiment of Englishness, and that's how she was described. And then of course she was genuinely cosmopolitan in her love of travel and her love of other cultures and all that obvious stuff. Yes.Inspirations for Miss MarpleOLIVER: How much of her grandmothers is in Miss Marple?THOMPSON: Quite a lot, I would say, particularly the—OLIVER: Drawn from life?THOMPSON: Well, in an essential way not, because Miss Marple has no real experience of life in that way. We're occasionally told about some chap who came calling who wasn't suitable or whatever, but she's almost defined by nonexperience of life in a sense, but observation of life. She's an observer. She's not an outsider in the way that Poirot is. She has a place within the social hierarchy and whatever, and that village has a reality to it. And the way it changes has a reality to it. But she is defined by being an observer, I would say.But Margaret Miller, who was the rich grandmother, who is the one who had the big house at Ealing and was—you know, she's the one who would go to the Army and Navy stores and all that stuff that's in At Bertram's Hotel. She was—there's a lot of her in Miss—I think, as I say in the book, she grew up with the sound of female wisdom in her ears. You know, her grandmother was the sort of—if she'd seen her up in Harrogate, she would've known exactly what was going on. You know, one of those kind of women who could spot an affair at a hundred paces, just a wise sort of woman, worldly, worldly woman.And Miss Marple is worldly in her thinking, but not in her experience, particularly in a book like A Caribbean Mystery, which I think is—she's a real sophisticate, Agatha. I mean, I'm reading The Hollow again at the moment. And it's really astounding to me how there's a love affair at the center of it with a young woman who's kind of a self-portrait and this married man. And not only, there's not—it's not only nonjudgmental; there's literally no concept of judgment being in the vicinity. It's really, really sophisticated, grown-up stuff, I think. And again, I think that's maybe not recognized about her that much.Nursery RhymesOLIVER: What are the importance of nursery rhymes to her?THOMPSON: Yes, that's interesting. They're part of that distilled quality she had, I suppose, that really simple ability to catch hold of something that is simple and familiar in itself and then subvert it. There's books where she—I don't think she needs it in Five Little Pigs. I think the book is almost too good for that.But is it not to do with that—like her titles, which are really, really simple with a faint frisson of the sinister about them. Is it not that ability she has to catch, to take something really, really simple and subvert it for her own ends? What do you think? Do you think that's right? Or do you think it's something more than that?OLIVER: No, I think the simplicity is the point, and I think it probably gives her a way of talking, of showing how fundamental the wickedness is. And as you say, the children can be evil, and it's part of the darkness in a way, but it gives the appearance of innocence and, oh, One, Two, Buckle My Shoe? You know, children do this. And so it leads you through and makes it worse somehow. [laughs]THOMPSON: Yes. Exactly. Exactly. But I know I've—how many times have I said the word simple? But I really do feel that's the heart of her. And I also feel it's the heart of why she was misunderstood when I was growing up reading her because it was mistaken for simplistic.Wartime ProductivityOLIVER: Why was she so productive during the war? I mean, there were four books one year.THOMPSON: Yes.OLIVER: And as you say, they're some of the best. I mean, what is it about the war that gets her so busy?THOMPSON: Well, she was on her own, which she had never been, really. Well, obviously she divorced her first husband in 1928. So there's a couple of very bleak, dead years before she met her second husband and married him in 1930. But she wasn't completely on her own because she had her friend Charlotte Fisher, who was a sort of secretary-companion, but much more than that—really, really good friend.But in the war, Max Mallowan was abroad. Her daughter—she had one child—her daughter was married and living in Wales. And she was living in the Isokon building in North London, which I love because that's like, “You think I'm chintzy and old fashioned. And here I am socializing with the sort of left-wing intelligentsia at the Isokon building.” And there's something about being in that adorable little flat—they're so fabulous, those flats—and being alone but not feeling abandoned, as she had after her first marriage.And I suppose also, you know, war is, you either cower in despair or you think, “Right, well, better get on with it.” War is stimulating in that way. I think it was to quite a few writers, maybe, or quite a few creatives. The shadow of death. But there was something about that solitude but not abandonment, plus the stimulation of not knowing whether it was your last day on earth that did—it did. I mean, it's absolutely insane how productive she is.And then she wrote—she had a week off. She was also working as a dispenser at a London hospital, and she had a week off. And she wrote a Mary Westmacott, Absent in the Spring, which is one of her best Westmacotts, I think. I mean, she's got a week off and she writes a book. I mean, Jesus, there's a challenge to us, Henry. [laughter]The Mary Westmacott NovelsOLIVER: What are those Mary Westmacotts like? Because I've never read them, but you seem very—THOMPSON: Oh, have you not?OLIVER: You're very up on them. You like them?THOMPSON: I am. I really am. Well, for a biographer, they were a treasure trove because they're very revealing. Unfinished Portrait is, I think, as close as you are ever going to come to a true autobiography, as opposed to the actual autobiography, which is charmingly disingenuous.OLIVER: And also dull. No? I mean, it's just so dull.THOMPSON: Do you think? It is a bit.OLIVER: I couldn't read it. I couldn't read it. No, it was so long and so leaden. I felt like she didn't really want to tell me the story of her life. Just couldn't.THOMPSON: Well, I think that's probably right. It was very heavily edited after her death. And her daughter was very, very protective of her. So, Max Mallowan as well. So maybe there was a much better book in there somewhere. Who knows?OLIVER: So we should read Mary Westmacott if we want the unfiltered Agatha?THOMPSON: I would say Unfinished Portrait. It really fascinates me because the worst time you've ever gone through in your life—so in 1926, she lost her mother and her husband in the space of four months. And I think an awful lot of people, even writers, would think, “I'm going to put that behind me and get on.” But she had to reopen the wound. She had to go through it all again eight years later. I find that really, in itself, incredibly revealing about her.Poirot vs. MarpleOLIVER: Why is there so much more Poirot than Marple?THOMPSON: Yes, I've wondered that because there is this little thing that she hated him, which I don't really think she did. It's just something people say, isn't it?OLIVER: Well, it's a common thing about artists. They're supposed to hate their most successful work, but—THOMPSON: Yes. Yes. All I could come up with was that he was easier to put in different places. He could conceivably be on the Nile or in Mesopotamia or—I mean, it would be a—she does manage to get Miss Marple to the West Indies, but it's certainly—OLIVER: There are only so many holidays your nephew can send you on.THOMPSON: He was really successful, that nephew, wasn't he? Who do you think he was like? Sort of Ian McEwan or—OLIVER: [laughs] I know. It was sort of crazy, isn't it?THOMPSON: And very kind to her.OLIVER: It might be to her credit that she doesn't do a Midsomer Murders thing and just sort of wave away and say, “Oh, we can just have as many of these murders as we want.” She says, “No, we can only fit—” Do you think maybe that's it?THOMPSON: I think there might be a bit of that. I mean, her notebooks sort of—some of the books were originally Marples, like Cat Among the Pigeons and Death on the Nile, in fact. And then they became Poirots. I just wonder whether he's a bit more malleable because she is a more rooted, fixed entity.And he is—I don't mean to denigrate David Suchet because he's a fantastic actor, but he does root him more than I think the written version. I think he is a sketch on the page. And one of her great skills, I think, is how she can sketch, and they've got that quality of aliveness on the page, which you just can't analyze, really. I don't—well, I can't. And that's how I see Poirot. So he was more movable in that sense.And she's incredibly good at certain—like Sleeping Murder, there's no way you could have him in that. And Miss Marple is—her qualities are so perfect for a book like that, which has suddenly reminded me of how she got me into John Webster. I never read John Webster until—OLIVER: [laughs] That's great.THOMPSON: The way she uses The Duchess of Malfi is so clever. Do you think that's right about Poirot? Do you think there's something more . . .Reader Preferences and SalesOLIVER: I can see that. I wondered if there was some reader's prejudice involved.THOMPSON: Oh.OLIVER: Poirot is the sort of exotic—Sherlock Holmes, one thing that makes him popular is that he's a bit wacky, you know. And Poirot—he's always talking about, “You English are so xenophobic. Excuse me, I am Belgian.” And with the eggs and all the little—whereas Miss Marple's just the kind of old lady that we all wish there were more of. And how much of that will readers take? I don't know.THOMPSON: Yes. Although, as I say, she, she did—I mean, I think her publishers did like her to do Poirot, but I don't know that she would've been influenced by that necessarily. I mean, maybe she was—maybe I'm overdoing her—OLIVER: Well, she had these terrible money problems. Didn't she have to be a little bit focused on the dollar?THOMPSON: She did. She did, but she didn't—well, I mean, the money problems are insane because they were absolutely no fault of her own. They were to do with test cases, and it was just this sort of accumulation of horror that put her in tax problems during the war. And she really never could dig her way out of them and was advised to go bankrupt twice, which is unbelievable, just as a way of clearing it. I mean, it's terrible.But I don't know that she—I think her attitude was a bit more, “Well, why should I even bother if they're just going to take it away from me?” In 1948 she didn't write anything at all because I think she thought, “What's the point?” But then, that wasn't her way. But I don't know that she thought of writing as a way of digging out of it necessarily. But I could be—OLIVER: The Marples, did they make less money? Were they, did they sell less?THOMPSON: Not really. I think they all sold. Even poor old Passenger to Frankfurt sold hugely, absolutely hugely. I think people—I mean, my parents would—it was like people just wanted them, the Christie for Christmas.Rereading ChristieOLIVER: How many times have you read these books? Do you ever get bored?THOMPSON: No.OLIVER: Really?THOMPSON: Well, I have them on rotation, and I don't—as you know, I do interleave them with our beloved Elizabeth Bowen, who's my passion at the moment, and other people. But they are consolatory, I suppose. They are—there's bits of—there is this kind of—there's bits of them that I just know completely off by heart, like the gramophone record in And Then There Were None and all that.But there's something—and maybe I should have said this earlier, when I say—I've said it on Substack—that they're fairy tales for adults. There's something about that. There's an almost physical sensation of pleasure, really, when the resolution comes. It is a bit like act five of Shakespeare. I'm not going to say she's quite on that level. Not even I am going to say that.But there is—and it is like being a child again and reading the end toward the happy-ever-after, even though her happy-ever-afters are sometimes compromised. And there is something almost primal in that pleasure. And it almost sounds borderline mad, me saying it like that, but I do think there's something in it because the resolution is so—because it's character based, and at her best, she's character and plot as one, as in Five Little Pigs or The Hollow or Murder on the Orient Express or blah, blah, blah.Her resolutions do tell you something about human nature. You do think, “Oh, yes, that is what that would be. Yes, it would be all about money. Yes. Yes, doctors are untrustworthy,” or something on a more profound level than that. There's something that is a satisfaction, both childlike and I'm experiencing it as an adult. In my defense, P. G. Wodehouse said you can never read them too many times. [laughs] It doesn't matter if you know who did it. There's so much pleasure in them.Thompson's CareerOLIVER: Now, I want to ask a little bit about your career.THOMPSON: Mm-hmm.OLIVER: You were at a sort of stage school, then you studied at Merton, and then you worked at The Times.THOMPSON: Yes. Very briefly. Yes.OLIVER: How does one therefore go from all of this to being the biographer?THOMPSON: Well, I did always think I would have a career in—I wanted to direct plays. I directed Hamlet after university, which is probably the thing I'm still proudest of. But what it was, was that I wrote a couple of books. I won an award when I was quite young.And then I had an agent who—I said to him, “I want to write a biography of Nancy Mitford.” And he wasn't very keen on the idea, but I must have written an okay proposal. Again, because I thought Nancy Mitford was a little bit undervalued, that she's a lot more than just a posh girl. And at the time her reputation was quite low. And so somebody bought into that idea, and it sort of went from there, really.But it's a bit—I sometimes look back at the books I've written, including a memoir of my publican grandmother, and I think, gosh, this is all quite scatter-gun, but maybe that's okay. Maybe you should just write the books you really want to write. But it was a passion for Nancy Mitford that sort of started that particular ball rolling.And then I had the idea of—oh, no. I was down in Devon with a boyfriend, and he said, “You never stop talking about Agatha Christie. Why don't you try and write her biography?” And that was just a luck of timing because her daughter was still alive. So I met her, and she liked me because I knew the Mary Westmacotts so well, and that sort of happened. I mean, quite often these things are very fortuitous, don't you think? Did you not find that with your book?OLIVER: Yes, yes. No, I did. I did. I think some writers, as you say—I don't think of it as scatter-gun. I think of it, it's sort of an emergent thing, and you happen to have these different interests, and you just follow your nose, and that's fine.THOMPSON: Yes, exactly.OLIVER: Tell us about this production of Hamlet.THOMPSON: Oh. Do you know, I think it was not bad. I had a very good Hamlet. I think if you've—well, you're in trouble without—who is now quite a successful actor. And we were all really young, but he was—I saw him in something and said, “Do you want to play Hamlet for me?” And he said, “Okay then.” And it was a room above a pub in Chelsea, and it was very spare and very quick.And it was about—I can't bear when people overanalyze the character of Hamlet, and why does he delay? He delays because Shakespeare wants him to, so that he can write all those incredible speeches. That's a bit simplified, but it was—he was so, he so understood the translucent power of those soliloquies, this actor. So it just sort of worked because we didn't do too much to it. And it was, yes, it was good. I think it was good. But then I did Macbeth, and that was much less good.Secretly Reading ChristieOLIVER: And you've said here, and I think you said it in your book, that when you were at Merton, you were reading Agatha Christie between the covers of what you were supposed to be reading.THOMPSON: Yes, yes, I was.OLIVER: That can't be—is that a slight exaggeration, or did you really not get on with the syllabus?THOMPSON: Well, hang on. I was a bit stuck in the first term. Can you imagine coming from a performing arts school—OLIVER: Yes.THOMPSON: —and then being told, “Read that bloody, you know.OLIVER: Yes, yes. No, it's intense.THOMPSON: All I knew was French. How I got in is a minor mystery, but there it was. I've tried to do it honor ever since by writing as best books I possibly can. But I was okay once I got over that bit. Once I got into my beloved Tennyson and all the people we've been talking about, Hardy and blah, blah, blah. Larkin, about whom the best thing I've ever read—the best thing I've ever read about Larkin is your Substack about him, without a shadow of a doubt.OLIVER: Oh, thank you.THOMPSON: Just wonderful. So I sort of winged it a bit, but I had a very nice don. And the autodidact side of me, which is very like Agatha Christie, who barely went to school, and Nancy Mitford—I think it can be a good thing in a way, because you have such a respect for learning and truth. I always try to be truthful in my biographies, which as we know, not everybody is. [laughter]And I think you carry on wanting to learn and carry on wanting to fill all the gaps because I only had half an education, because in the morning you would do ballet and drama and all that kind of thing. So it is a bit odd, but in some ways I think it's been a good thing.OLIVER: Now, the new book is about the 1926 disappearance. When can we expect it to be published?THOMPSON: It's only a short book—OLIVER: Yes.THOMPSON: —because obviously I covered it a lot in the biography, and it doesn't—but I have found out a couple of new things. And that will be out in August here and in November in America. And I have come up with a slightly different slant on it, but mainly—and I treat it a little bit like a cold case. And it was—I had to write—I wrote it in five weeks, but it was incredibly good fun. Oh, and I reenacted her journey, which was very interesting, to Harrogate.But mainly it's such a pleasure because I, you know, on Substack, and I think, “Oh, you can't write about Agatha Christie again.” There always seems to be quite a lot to say. I'm intrigued by how you, who I think of as a true intellectual, how you have clear regard for her.Henry on Agatha ChristieOLIVER: I started reading her when I was about 12, and I just thought she was great, and I went through most of them. But I read them at intervals. So I was reading her into my twenties, thirties. And before this interview I tried to—I thought, “Laura's always saying Five Little Pigs is the best one. I'm going to read it.” And I just sort of found that I've lost the taste, in a way.THOMPSON: Okay.OLIVER: Which I was quite, I don't know, just maybe—I feel like this is my failing. Maybe I should take a week off and sit by the pool and read it properly. But I've always thought she's really, really great, and very few people can do that many very compelling stories without you sort of thinking, “Oh, I've read this one. I know. Yes. It's the same as the other one, isn't it? Yes. Yes, it was the”—as you say, it's not Cluedo. Even Dorothy L. Sayers, I don't think I could read much more by her, frankly. Great, she's great, but it's enough. [laughs]THOMPSON: Well, I quite like her. The whole—most girls who went to Oxford are quite keen on Gaudy Night, and the character of Harriet Vane is quite satisfying, I think.OLIVER: Indeed, indeed. And Strong Poison is great. And there—but I just mean if she'd written as many books as Agatha, you can't imagine it would've sustained the level of quality.THOMPSON: No, no. There is that lightness in Agatha and that terrible cliché of, “I wrote a long book because it was too—I didn't have enough time to write a short book,” and all that kind of thing. The brevity amazes me. When I said at the start, most writers would take twice as many pages to get all that in.She has style—I don't know if you can call it a style, but there is something blindingly effective about it that nobody can imitate. And it does—there's something so fathomless about her, and that's what continues to compel me. But I think it's very lovely of you to do this if you are no longer an admirer because you've let me sort of—OLIVER: Well, it's not that I'm not an admirer. It's just that I don't—I had this with P. G. Wodehouse. I read quite a lot of it, and now, I don't know, somehow I've reached a point where it's—I sort of get it, but it's just not that funny anymore. I don't know, just need some time away.THOMPSON: Well, maybe. Maybe, but you know, I'm a bit—she's part of my life now. It's like if somebody said, “You can't read her anymore,” it would be like, “You can't listen to the Rolling Stones anymore.” I mean, it'd be like a kind of death. She's part of my life the same way they're part of my life. She's now inseparable from just the way I go on, as is Shakespeare. And if I had to lose one of them, trust me, it would be her, you'll be reassured to know. [laughter]OLIVER: Very good. Laura, this has been a lot of fun. Thank you very much.THOMPSON: Oh, I've really enjoyed it. I really have. And I was really looking forward to it, and it's been even nicer than I thought it would be. So thank you.OLIVER: Oh, it's been delightful.THOMPSON: Thank you so much, Henry.OLIVER: Thank you. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk

Friday Favorites is returning to Highbury, as Emma Woodhouse and Harriet Smith find themselves on a very noble outing to help the poor. Though their minds are naturally filled with charitable thoughts, when they happen to run into Mr. Elton on the road back into town, Emma knows it's the perfect chance to engineer a one-on-one conversation between Mr. Elton and Harriet, complete with a trip to Mr. Elton's home at the vicarage. Everything is falling into place for the two lovers exactly as Emma has planned, and she is sure it is just a matter of time until the great event. As Emma congratulates herself on a job well done, let her familiar story bring you comfort as you close your week and settle in for a night of warm and gentle sleep. -----Welcome to the Jane Austen Bedtime Stories podcast! Each episode is a section of a classic Jane Austen novel, read in soothing tones and set to calming music to help you fall asleep.With everything that is going on in the world, we find comfort in the familiar. For so many of us, Jane Austen's works are like a warm hug. So snuggle up under the covers and let the comforting words of Jane Austen lull you into sleep.-----Show your appreciation for the pod! Support the podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bedtimestoriespodcast.net/support⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -----Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/janeaustenbedtimepod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠-----Music ["Reverie"] by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. – www.scottbuckley.com.au

On this episode of Currently Reading, Kaytee and Meredith are discussing: Bookish Moments: A new bookish metaphor and book moms in the wild Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we've been reading lately Deep Dive: Explaining a Currently Reading literary society Before We Go: our new segment featuring bookish friend posts and a sleeper hit you should read. Show notes are time-stamped below for your convenience. Read the transcript of the episode (this link only works on the main site). . . . 1:44 - Bookish Moments of the Week 1:52 - Currently Reading Website 1:56 - Books We Want To Press Into Your Hands 3:03 - Best Books for Babies and Kids 3:42 - Castle of Water by Dane Huckelbridge 5:55 - A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms on HBO Max 7:12 - Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin 7:16 - A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms by George R. R. Martin (all 3 Dunk and Egg novellas) 7:55 - Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid 8:33 - Current Reads 8:41 - The Secret Library by Kekla Magoon (Kaytee) 11:47 - The Book Wanderers by Anna James 11:50 - The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon 11:54 - The Midnight Library by Matt Haig 13:08 - Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman (Meredith) 15:10 - The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins 15:11 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams 15:45 - Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah 22:27 - Ready Player One by Ernest Cline 24:10 - Six Feet Over by Mary Roach (Kaytee) 27:20 - Gulp by Mary Roach 27:21 - Bonk by Mary Roach 27:22 - Stiff by Mary Roach 28:51 - Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie (Meredith) 32:06 - Agatha Christie's Marple by Mark Aldridge 34:18 - The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden (Kaytee) 34:33 - Charter Books 39:00 - Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (Meredith) 42:28 - Dracula by Bram Stoker 45:21 - Turning Instagram into Bookstagram 47:25 - Sign up for the newsletter on our website 47:26 - Currently Reading Substack 50:48 - Currently Reading Instagram 50:54 - @HelloSunshine on Instagram 50:58 - @BookRiot on Instagram  51:00 - @NYTBooks on Instagram 51:40 - @Iamblackharry on Instagram 52:10 - Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak 52:28 - The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas 52:42 - The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower 53:42 - The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides 53:48 - God of the Woods by Liz Moore 54:03 - Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir 56:13 - Sarah's Bookshelves Live 58:44 - Before We Go Meredith highlights a bookish friend post 59:34 - The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver 59:54 - The Correspondent by Virginia Evans Kaytee's Book She DNF'd: 1:01:22 - The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor 1:01:28 - Bookshelf Thomasville 1:02:57 - From the Front Porch podcast Support Us: Become a Bookish Friend | Grab Some Merch Shop Bookshop dot org | Shop Amazon Bookish Friends Receive: The Indie Press List with a curated list of five books hand sold by the indie of the month. February's list is a special romance curated list from Open Door Romance, The Novel Neighbor's Romance adjacent bookstore in Plainville, MA. Love and Chili Peppers with Kaytee and Rebekah - romance lovers get their due with this special episode focused entirely on the best selling genre fiction in the business All Things Murderful with Meredith and Elizabeth - special content for the scary-lovers, brought to you with the behind-the-scenes insights of an independent bookseller From the Editor's Desk with Kaytee and Bunmi Ishola - a quarterly peek behind the curtain at the publishing industry The Bookish Friends Facebook Group - where you can build community with bookish friends from around the globe as well as our hosts Connect With Us: The Show: Instagram | Website | Email | Threads | Substack | Youtube The Hosts and Regulars: Meredith | Kaytee | Mary | Roxanna Production and Editing: Megan Phouthavong Evans Affiliate Disclosure: All affiliate links go to Bookshop unless otherwise noted. Shopping here helps keep the lights on and benefits indie bookstores. Thanks for your support!

Warning: SPOILERS! In her autobiography, Agatha Christie said she thought less of a reader who loved “The Mystery of the Blue Train.” She wrote it to meet her publisher's deadline, and finishing it made her realize that she was a professional writer, not a housewife who wrote. Teresa and I look at the “Agatha Christie's Poirot” adaptation of “Blue Train,” starring Elliot Gould. This precursor contains many of the seeds that Christie would explore in “Murder on the Orient Express,” with beautiful scenery of the south of France.“Agatha Christie, They Watch” reviews the adaptations of Agatha Christie's novels in chronological order.Teresa Peschel, author of "Agatha Christie, She Watched" and the "International Agatha Christie, She Watched," hosts our livestream. Joining Teresa is her husband, technical adviser, and straight man, Bill Peschel. Together, they are Peschel Press, publisher of intriguing, intelligent, and idiosyncratic books (www.peschelpress.com).HOW TO SEE THIS MOVIE: Available on DVD.WHERE TO FIND USPeschel Press: www.peschelpress.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/peschel_press/NEXT WEEK:“Murder at the Vicarage” (1986), starring Joan Hickson from “Miss Marple.”DISCLAIMER: FAIR USE. Title 17, US Code (Sections 107-118 of the copyright law) All media in this video is used for the purpose of review and commentary under the terms of fair use. All footage, music and images used belong to their respective owners.

A new year and plenty to talk about. Join Alan Gray as he takes you and Thordis on a 'wander' through the plants wowing at East Ruston Old Vicarage this month. PLANT LISTClianthus puniceus ‘Kākā King'Lachenalia rubidaFuchsia 'Wapenveld's Bloei'Tropaeolum majus 'Hermine Grashoff'Tropaeolum majus 'Margaret Long'Tropaeolum majus 'Darjeeling Gold' syn 'Darjeeling Double'Phlebodium aureum 'Davana'Viola hederaceaCarex buchananiiGalanthus plicatus 'Wandlebury Ring'Iris unguicularisIris lazicaNarcissus 'Rijnveld's Early Sensation'Narcissus 'Pueblo'Prunus mume 'Beni-chidori'Malva arborea 'Variegata'Salix alba var. vitellina 'Britzensis'Arum 'Hungarian Rhapsody'Galanthus 'Wasp'Galanthus 'Glimmer of Gold'Galanthus plicatus 'Golden Fleece'Galanthus 'Primrose Warburg'

In this episode of the Quick Book Reviews Podcast, I'm joined by Tanya Sweeney to talk about her novel Esther Is Now Following You — a chilling and timely exploration of online obsession, surveillance, and power.We discuss the inspiration behind the book, the realities of digital stalking, and what it means to write fiction that feels uncomfortably close to real life.I'm also sharing spoiler-free reviews of four very different books, ranging from contemporary crime and true crime to classic mysteries reimagined.Books featured in this episode:Witch Trial by Harriet TyceMr Poirot: Mischief on the Nile by Roger Hargreaves & Agatha ChristieLittle Miss Marple: Murder at the Vicarage by Roger Hargreaves & Agatha ChristieThe Mushroom Tapes: Conversations on a Triple Murder Trial by Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper & Sarah KrasnosteinWhether you're looking for your next great read, enjoy thoughtful author interviews, or love discovering books across genres, there's plenty to explore in this episode.Follow Quick Book Reviews for book recommendations, author interviews, and weekly podcast episodes.

The public domain comes for us all and today it's come for Miss Marple, the elderly busybody and amateur sleuth that Agatha Christie created in the 1920s. In her first proper novel, Marple assists a vicar in uncovering the truth behind a murder that occurred in his own home (also known as a vicarage). How does Marple do it? With a keen understanding of Human Nature.This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com/overdue.Head to MarleySpoon.com/offer/overdue for 45% off your first order and free delivery!Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.Follow @overduepod on Instagram and BlueskyAdvertise on OverdueSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tara has a fascinating chat with Liisa Kovala, a Finnish Canadian author, book coach, and former teacher about historical fiction, cozy mysteries, sisu, her book coaching, podcast, and coffee. Her latest novel is, Like Water for Weary Souls. https://www.liisakovalabookcoach.com/ "In Nolin Creek, the water runs deep and the secrets run deeper. In the harsh landscape of a Depression-era Northern Ontario mining town, Finnish immigrant sisters Hanna and Essi Kivi scrape together a living as domestic workers, sharing a room in a disreputable boarding house owned by a protective madame. ​When Hanna's body is discovered in the icy waters of Nolin Creek, the police call it a tragic accident. But Essi knows better. Her sister would never have risked crossing unstable ice—not after they lost their youngest sister Martta to drowning years before. ​Haunted by guilt and driven by loyalty, Essi begins to unravel the secrets Hanna kept hidden. As Essi digs deeper into her sister's final days, she discovers that in a town built on desperation and dreams for a better future, everyone has something to hide. ​A gripping tale of love, family, sisterhood, and the search for truth." Recommended Reading List: Burial Rites by Hannah Kent Everyone on This Train is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie https://www.youtube.com/@liisakovala https://liisakovalawomenwriting.substack.com/ https://www.instagram.com/liisakovala/        

Join me as I break down the ingenious misdirections and subtle clues Agatha Christie plants in Miss Marple's first four cases: 'The Murder at the Vicarage,' 'The Body in the Library,' 'The Moving Finger,' and 'A Murder is Announced.' I'll reveal what I missed initially, what most readers often overlook, and how Christie's techniques evolved. Discussing detailed observations, misidentifications, and ingenious plotting, you'll see just how cleverly Christie crafted these mysteries. Let's dive into St. Mary's Mead and unravel what makes these early Miss Marple stories timeless gems.Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/jxcYcD5DtkU

September already and East Ruston Old Vicarage is as bursting with colour as you might expect! Alan Gray brings just a few favourites for Show and Tell, while Thordis is FLOMO*ing over a very 'Alan' container she spotted on holiday!*FLOMO = FLoral/plant-based fear Of Missing OutPLANT LISTBrugmansia 'Shredded White Fantasy'Brugmansia × candida 'Grand Marnier'Tagetes ex 'Cinnabar' Great Dixter formAgeratum petiolatumTropaeolum majus 'Empress of India'Lobelia tupaSalvia reglaSalvia involucrata 'Bethellii'Salvia involucrata 'Mulberry Jam'Salvia involucrata 'Joan'Salvia 'Tropicolor Sunrise'Solanum laxum 'Crech ar Pape'Catalpa fargesiiBegonia sutherlandiiBegonia sutherlandii 'Saunders' Legacy'Cuphea 'David Verity'Cuphea llaveaLotus berthelotiiSalvia oxyphoraChrysanthemum 'Julia Peterson'

Join Matt Davies-Adams, Sam Parkin and Adrian Clarke as they pick out some of the best bits from another busy weekend of EFL action as well as pointing out some transfers of note and Grimsby's admin being hoisted by his own hubris Our partners Quinn Bet have a NEW offer: you can now get 50% back up to £25.   If your account has Sportsbook losses at the end of your first day's betting, QuinnBet will refund 50% of your losses as a Free Bet up to £25 (min 3 bets). Even if your account is up, you're guaranteed a £5 Free Bet provided you place at least 1 bet of £10 or greater at the minimum odds. T&Cs apply | 18+ New UK Customers Only | GambleAware.org | Gamble Responsibly”  https://quinnbet.click/o/L5trHE?lpage=T4KU20

This month Alan Gray has come along with an arm full of Show and Tell, from his container-planting stalwarts to an eye-catching Crinum! I bet you'll be ooh-ing and aah-ing as much as his Talking Dirty co-presenter Thordis.PLANT LISTPhlox drummondii grandiflora 'Sugar Stars'Phlox drummondii grandiflora 'Crème Brûlée'Dahlia coccinea var. palmeriTagetes 'Cinnabar'Amaranthus cruentus 'Hot Biscuits'Ageratum petiolatumEutrochium maculatum syn. Eupatorium purpureum subsp. maculatumClerodendrum bungeiCleome spinosaCrinum moorei Helichrysum petiolare 'Limelight'Tradescantia 'Maiden's Blush'Oxalis vulcanicola 'Plum Crazy'Iresine herbstiiIresine herbstii 'Aureoreticulata'Tithonia rotundifoliaClematis addisoniiPseudogynoxys chenopodioidesBomarea multiflora syn. Bomarea caldasii

Getting back in touch with the foremost citizen of St Mary Mead. Support the podcast by joining the Shedunnit Book Club and get extra Shedunnit episodes every month plus access to the monthly reading discussions and community: shedunnitbookclub.com/join. Books mentioned in this episode:— The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie— The Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie— The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie— The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie— Agatha Christie's Complete Secret Notebooks edited by John Curran— The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie— The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie NB: Links to Blackwell's are affiliate links, meaning that the podcast receives a small commission when you purchase a book there (the price remains the same for you). Blackwell's is a UK bookselling chain that ships internationally at no extra charge. To be the first to know about future developments with the podcast, sign up for the newsletter at shedunnitshow.com/newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

...and we're bac...No wait. Your host Andy is trying something new this week. Joined by your usual suspects Dun and Ant, the lads discuss...- Another bloody game of two halves. Abysmal first, much better second. But we leave Vicarage road puncktless.- Bloody hell Kieran Morgan, where did that come from?- Bustling Burrell and a Kameo From Kone.- "I'm a Louza baby, So why don't I try and kill him" . A Righteous Red for Imran. - A slow start shows where we need reinforcements. Do we have the finances to make moves before the window closes? - Speaking of which...Eze Cash for the R's? Ebs says his goodbyes on Sunday to the Palace faithful? or yet another false alarm?- How much? Is Koki now out of sight? Oh. - Bennie extends after an impressive pre-season.- Jimmy back soon? But what about Kwame? No News is...well no news.- Goals galore in the Kelman vs Armstrong Derby- Dark horses at the back of the pack early doors in the Championship - Our old friend is less than at Leicester. - Lyndon Dykes late winner leads to bromance with Tom Brady.- NY Giants double top with Dart? Mets fail to impress. - La Bonita Isla & Viva Ed Vargas - remembering our Chilean lads- Ant's Bumper Cov Kit Korner - All the lads have a 50% record of correct scorelines this season. Can this rich vein of form continue?- Song lyrics and a double Haiku. Jacob's Stanzas working overtime. - Twin Peaks, Macedonian wine and Unbelievable Butter! Accuracy With AI transcripts. Dan Ballet, Jean Chiller and Mark Cash?...Lovely Stuff!Come to the Football Factory 10am and meet at least one of our Bens and Sanch who'll take very good care of you.Rate, review, comment, all that good stuffCome back next week to see how Andy will introduce the pod. All aboard HOS Pistol League!

On this episode, we discuss feel-good fiction, a prompt on the Summer-Fall Books & Bites Bingo reading challenge!Our picks include two summer-soaked novels set in New England; a classic mystery; and a cozy fantasy so good, it busted Michael out of his reading slump.Carrie's PicksMusical Chairs by Amy PoeppelFlying Solo by Linda HolmesPairing: Homemade Maple-Sweetened Blueberry MuffinsJacqueline's PicksMurder at the Vicarage by Agatha ChristiePairing: Tea CakesMichael's PicksLegends & Lattes by Travis BaldreePairing: Thimblets, a biscotti-like treat served at Legends & Lattes

Daarrrlings, send in your voice note confessions to the new Welcome To Hell Hotline: 07495997262! This week Daniel delivers a sermon on why the seasons need to be shuffled and how the world could benefit from adopting the Foxx Calendar™. Meanwhile, Dane argues the case for the best musical the stage has ever known.The infernal aunties also take umbrage with the attention seeking life expectancy of berries and hear about a tempt thy neighbour from inside the Vicarage. Produced by podcasthouse.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, we're stepping into the quiet village of St. Mary Mead—where, naturally, a murder has just taken place. We're talking about Murder at the Vicarage, Agatha Christie's first full length novel to feature the sharp-eyed, quietly brilliant Miss Marple.In this episode, we dig into what makes this book such a good introductory read to one of Christie's most beloved detectives. We'll talk red herrings, small-town secrets, and why this seemingly peaceful village is the perfect setting for a whodunnit. Plus, we'll share our favorite suspects, biggest surprises, and what we love about Christie's clever plotting and dry wit.Whether you're new to Miss Marple or revisiting her first case, join us as we unravel the mystery at the vicarage—one suspicious clue at a time.Support the showRecommend us a Book!If there's a book you want to recommend to us to read, just send us a message/email and we'll pop it on our long list (but please read our review policy on our website first for the books we accept).Social MediaWebsite: https://teachingmycattoread.wordpress.com/Email: teachingmycattoread@gmail.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/teachmycat2read/Tumblr: https://teachingmycattoread.tumblr.comYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFXi9LNQv8SBQt8ilgTZXtQListener Surveyhttps://forms.gle/TBZUBH4SK8dez8RP9

From gap-fillers to planting for climate change, here's a meander through Alan Gray's latest escapades at East Ruston Old Vicarage, alongside his Talking Dirty co-presenter Thordis.PLANT LISTHydrangea macrophylla 'Madame Emile Mouillère' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Ayesha'Hydrangea 'Runaway Bride'Amaranthus cruentus 'Hot Biscuits'Amaranthus cruentus 'Foxtail'Lantana camaraFicus carica 'White Ischia'Plumbago auriculataLeonotis leonurusFuchsia 'Delta's Sara'Fuchsia procumbensTagetes patula 'Konstance'Erythrina crista-galliPunica granatumMalus transitoriaSalvia darcyi

Film Review: Dead Silence (2007) Visit our WEBSITE Subscribe to our PATREON Subscribe to our YOUTUBE CHANNEL Visit our MERCH STOREResources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borgvattnethttps://thelittlehouseofhorrors.com/borgvattnet-vicarage/https://astonishinglegends.com/astonishing-legends/2019/4/14/borgvattnets-frightening-vicaragehttps://www.borgvattnet.eu/historik/https://swedesinthestates.com/borgvattnet-the-most-haunted-house-in-sweden/https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stugusl%C3%A4ktenhttps://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nidarosdomenhttps://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gjurd_Bodakarlhttps://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A5l_Perssonhttps://allthatsinteresting.com/carl-tanzler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nearly the end of June already, past the Summer solstice and plenty to talk about at East Ruston Old Vicarage, particularly Alan Gray's latest planty purchases from their summer plant fair! Get ready to have some FLOMO*!*FLOMO = FLoral/plant-based fear Of Missing OutPLANT LISTEucomis pole-evansiiEucomis pole-evansii 'Dark Desire'Rosa x beaniiVerbascum roripifoliumIris tectorumBerkheya radulaBerkheya purpureaPuya × berteronianaBeschorneria yuccoidesAgave montanaPhoenix canariensisPodophyllum versipelle 'Spotty Dotty'Abutilon 'Red Tiger'Desmodium yunnanense

No rain, but lots of other things to put smiles on our faces at East Ruston Old Vicarage, from the last of the Daffodils to punchy Pelargoniums and fab Foxglove trees!PLANT LISTTulipa 'Yellow Crown'Narcissus 'Painted Desert'Narcissus 'Irish Linen'Tropaeolum smithiiPiptanthus laburnifolius syn. Piptanthus nepalensisBupleurum fruticosumPelargonium 'Dark Secret'Malus hupehensisPaulownia tomentosaPaulownia fortunei 'Fast Blue' ('Minfast')Smyrnium perfoliatumMelanoselinum decipiensEchium pininanaEchium 'Candyfloss'Nemophila menziesiiPrimula auricula ‘Swanton Cuckoo'

This week, we're off to the deceptively cozy village of St. Mary Mead, where gossip flows freely and murder is just around the hedgerow. Join us as Miss Marple makes her unforgettable debut in The Murder at the Vicarage—knitting needles in hand and sharper than ever.My guest this week is author Kemper Donovan. Kemper began his writing career while still working as a manager, eventually publishing his debut novel, The Decent Proposal, after a lengthy journey to publication. Around the same time, he co-created the podcast All About Agatha with his friend Catherine Brobeck, celebrating the work of Agatha Christie. Following Catherine's passing in 2021, Kemper has continued the podcast on his own, and his passion for Christie's mysteries led him to create his own Ghostwriter mystery series including books The Busy Body and Loose Lips, now published by Kensington Books. He lives with his husband and their two daughters, and when not writing or podcasting, he enjoys running and making valiant attempts at playing the violin.Our drink this week is Miss Marples Cherrry Blossom from the book Agatha Whiskey by Colleen Mullany in which Kemper wrote the forward!MISS MARPLE'S CHERRY BLOSSOM Serves 2Miss Jane Marple's character is based loosely on Agatha's grandmother and her friends, and has appeared in twelve novels and twenty short stories. She makes her own cherry brandy from her garden, claiming that a bit of brandy helps ease one's nerves. Cheers to that, Jane!1 ounce gin1 ounce cherry brandy1 ounce sake¾ ounce grenadine1 ounce lemon juiceEdible flowers for garnishIn a shaker with ice, combine all ingredients. Shake well, strain into coupe glasses, garnish with edible flowers, and serve.Mocktail! Replace the gin with Monday or another nonalcoholic spirit, the cherry brandy with San Pellegrino's Sanbitter Red or another nonalcoholic aperitif, and the sake with Gekkeiken alcohol-free Daiginjo Sake or another nonalcoholic sake. Prepare as above.In this EpisodeAll About Agatha PodcastKemper's WebsiteHercule Poirot SeriesThe Murder at the Vicarage Episode- All About Agatha PodcastDr. Mark Aldridge - Agatha Christie HistorianShedunnit PodcastAnne of Green Gables Episode -Drinks in the Library

Vicarage service recollections, and some TikToks from Bollhagen   Third Sunday of Easter, John 10:11–16

Dan catches up with Pete and Justin from @DNSYE_podcast, returning the favour to give the chance to look at the upcoming game at Vicarage road through some Yellow tinted specsWas Xisco Munoz actually any good?What Can we expect this weekend?Shall we just sack it off and go Popworld?Find out here! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to this weeks Dark Realm.This week, our listener Gabriella suggested we take a peek inside what's known as Sweden's most haunted house, and it didn't disappoint. I hope you enjoy our little venture in to the history, spectres and mystery of this small rural vicarage.Stay safe,Kevin.Joining our Patreon team not only gives you early Ad-Free access to all of our episodes, it can also give you access to the Patreon only podcast, Dark Bites. Dark Bites releases each and every week, even on the down time between seasons. There are almost 100 hours of unheard true paranormal experiences for you to binge. Simply head over to:www.patreon.com/thedarkparanormalAlso check out our website:www.thedarkparanormal.comYou can also follow us on the below Social Media links:www.twitter.com/darkparanormalxwww.facebook.com/thedarkparanormalwww.youtube.com/thedarkparanormalwww.instagram.com/thedarkparanormalOur Sponsors:* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code DARKPARANORMAL for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What weather we've had! As you can imagine there's plenty to talk about at East Ruston Old Vicarage, including an exciting new planting project for Alan Gray...PLANT LISTMagnolia 'Vulcan'Magnolia sieboldiiDelospermaCyrtanthus elatus syn. Vallota speciosaWatsoniaSparaxis tricolorHippeastrumTigridia pavoniaPodranea ricasolianaAbutilon 'Fool's Gold'Clianthus puniceusHelichrysum petiolareFremontodendron californicumTithonia rotundifoliaColeus scutellarioides 'Burgundy Wedding Train'Coleus scutellarioides 'Pink Chaos'Mirabilis jalapaAnagallis monellii 'Skylover'Quercus suberLobelia 'Kathleen Mallard'Primula allionii ‘Broadwell Oliver'Chionodoxa luciliae syn. Scilla luciliaeEuphorbia characias subsp. wulfeniiIxiaMoraea huttonii

Why is the vicarage year such an important part of pastoral formation in the LCMS? The Rev. David Nehrenz, President of the LCMS Oklahoma District, joins Andy and Sarah for our Set Apart to Serve series to share his journey into the Holy Ministry. He discusses his current vocation as District President, reflects on how his own vicarage was a formative experience, and talks about the vicars he has supervised over the years. Rev. Nehrenz also explains what a typical vicarage year looks like for seminarians, the importance of the relationships that form between vicars and their congregations, and the ways he has seen vicars grow during this year of experience. Learn more about the LCMS Oklahoma District at oklahomalutherans.org. Christ's church will continue until He returns, and that church will continue to need church workers. Set Apart to Serve (SAS) is an initiative of the LCMS to recruit church workers. Together, we pray for workers for the Kingdom of God and encourage children to consider church work vocations. Here are three easy ways you can participate in SAS: 1. Pray with your children for God to provide church workers. 2. Talk to your children about becoming church workers. 3. Thank God for the people who work in your congregation. To learn more about Set Apart to Serve, visit lcms.org/set-apart-to-serve. Have a topic you'd like to hear about on The Coffee Hour? Contact us at: listener@kfuo.org.

After an impromptu lurgy-induced break, Talking Dirty returns to explore the wonders at East Ruston Old Vicarage this March. Alan Gray - owner of the 32-acre garden on the Norfolk coast - shares new purchases and old 'friends' which are heightening the joys of spring. Meanwhile Thordis has some very seasonal FLOMO*!*FLOMO = FLoral/plant-based fear Of Missing OutPLANT LISTAbeliophyllum distichum Roseum GroupHedera helix f. poetarumIlex 'East Ruston Gold'Magnolia 'Caerhays Belle'Pyrus communis 'Robin'Cichorium intybusEchium vulgareBorago officinalisOak leaf PolyanthusErysimum 'Winter Passion'Erysimum 'Winter Orchid'Narcissus cyclamineusNarcissus 'Rataplan'Narcissus 'Rijnveld's Early Sensation' Narcissus 'Firebrand'Iris 'Benton Dierdre' Iris 'Benton Olive' Narcissus 'Bath's Flame' Daphne bholua 'Mary Rose'

It's been quite a brutal start to the year, but that hasn't stopped East Ruston Old Vicarage from turning out some showstoppers this winter! From bulbs in the garden to shrubs under glass, Alan Gray shares some of the plants bringing him joy in the garden. Plus updates from behind the scenes. And, of course, some FLOMO*!*FLOMO = FLoral/plant-based fear Of Missing OutPLANT LISTFuchsia 'Lottie Hobby'Narcissus cyclamineus 'Englander'Crocus sieberi 'Ronald Ginns'Solanum laxum 'Crèche du Pape'Griselinia littoralisLathyrus grandiflorusDianthus 'Mrs Sinkins'Pittosporum tobira 'Variegatum' Pittosporum tobira 'West Acre Gold'Reinwardtia indicaScilla bithynicaPrimula meadia

Alan Gray and Thordis are feeling festive and they're celebrating with some seasonal Show and Tell from Alan's 32 acre garden on the Norfolk coast, from the plants you'd expect to be dazzling in December, to some unseasonal surprises.PLANT LISTGalanthus 'Santa Claus'Galanthus plicatus 'Three Ships'Galanthus elwesii 'Peter Gatehouse'Narcissus 'Cedric Morris'Narcissus 'Tête-à-tête'Jasminum nudiflorumArum italicum subsp. neglectum 'Miss Janay Hall'Iris unguicularisLonicera fragrantissimaDaphne bholua 'Darjeeling'Viburnum × bodnantenseSarcococca ruscifolia var. chinensis ‘Dragon Gate'Camellia sasanqua 'Rainbow'Camellia hiemalisCamellia 'Sparkling Burgundy'Camellia 'Sugar Dream'Paeonia lactiflora 'Bowl of Beauty'Viburnum tinus 'Israel'Taxus baccata 'Standishii'Griselinia littoralis 'Dixon's Cream'Griselinia littoralis 'Bantry Bay'Forsythia suspensaErysimum 'Parish's'Erysimum 'Bowles's Mauve'Salvia curvifloraTradescantia 'Maiden's BlushFuchsia 'Lottie Hobby'Amarine belladiva 'Anastasia'Helleborus nigerSkimmia japonica 'Rubella'EuonymusRuscus aculeatus 'John Redmond'Hebe 'Simon Delaux'Abutilon 'Gerdmann'S Red'Abutilon 'Estella's Little Bird'Solanum laxum 'Album' syn. Solanum jasminoides AlbumSolanum laxum 'Crèche du Pape'Coronilla valentina subsp. glaucaCoronilla valentina subsp. glauca 'Citrina'Hedera colchica 'Sulphur Heart'Ilex 'East Ruston Gold'Arum pictum 'Primrose Warburg'

This week we take a look at The Borgvattnet Vicarage in a tiny Swedish town! We're not sure how we hadn't heard about this place until recently!  Sponsor Master Class – MasterClass.com/GRAVEYARD Check out our sources below for more info and to continue learning! Please Rate & Review us wherever you get your Podcasts!  Mail us something:  GYT Podcast PO Box 542762 Grand Prairie, TX 75054 Leave us a Voicemail or shoot us a text! 430-558-1304 Our Website WWW.GraveYardPodcast.com Patreon https://www.patreon.com/GraveYardTales Youtube: Youtube.com/c/GraveYardTales Rumble – GraveYard Tales Podcast Do you want GraveYard Merch?!?! Go to https://www.teepublic.com/stores/graveyard-tales?ref_id=22286 to get you some!  Visit Podbelly.comto find more shows like us and to get information you might need if you're starting your own podcast. Thank You Darron for our Logo!! You can get in touch with Darron for artwork by searching Darron DuBose on Facebook or Emailing him at art_injector@yahoo.com Thank you to Brandon Adams for our music tracks!! If you want to hear more from Brandon check him out at: Soundcloud.com/brandonadamsj Youtube.com/brandonadams93 Or to get in touch with him for compositions email him at Brandon_adams@earthlink.net Our Contacts WWW.GraveYardPodcast.com Email us at: GraveYardTalesPodcast@gmail.com Find us on social media: Twitter: @GrveYrdPodcast Facebook: @GraveYardTalesPodcast Instagram: @GraveYardTalesPodcast Sources https://thelittlehouseofhorrors.com/borgvattnet-vicarage/ https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/borgvattnet-vicarage https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/borgvattnet-swedens-haunted-village/ https://www.voguescandinavia.com/articles/8-most-haunted-locations-in-scandinavia https://swedesinthestates.com/borgvattnet-the-most-haunted-house-in-sweden/ https://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art183907.asp https://www.goragunda.com/activities-/sweden's-largest-haunted-house https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/borgvattnet-vicarage https://www.voguescandinavia.com/articles/8-most-haunted-locations-in-scandinavia https://thelittlehouseofhorrors.com/borgvattnet-vicarage/ https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/borgvattnet-swedens-haunted-village/ https://swedesinthestates.com/borgvattnet-the-most-haunted-house-in-sweden/ https://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art183907.asp https://www.goragunda.com/activities-/sweden's-largest-haunted-house 

Alan Gray and Thordis take a look at the plants still packing a punch, even though East Ruston Old Vicarage closed to visitors last month...from fab foliage to seasonal blooms.PLANT LISTIris unguicularisIris unguicularis 'Mary Barnard'Iris unguicularis 'Walter Butt'Cestrum fasciculatum 'Newellii'Viola 'Parme de Toulouse'Begonia luxuriansIlex verticillataCallicarpa bodinieri var. giraldii 'Profusion'Hosta 'Empress Wu'Galanthus reginae-olgaeGalanthus 'James Backhouse'Griselinia littoralis 'Dixon's Cream'Fatsia japonica 'Spider's Web'Buddleja davidii 'Santana'Nerine 'Hotspur'

Today, we're starting season 15 off by diving into a powerful conversation on mental health, beauty, and the healing power of quietness with Sarah Clarkson, author of Reclaiming Quiet. Growing up in a Christian home, Sarah faced a traumatic diagnosis of OCD at the age of 17 and battled intrusive, troubling thoughts. In the midst of her struggle, she grappled with doubts about God's goodness, especially as the world around her seemed to mirror her inner chaos. Yet, it was through glimpses of beauty—whether in nature, literature like Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, or the touch of a loved one—that she found an anchor for her faith. Sarah's journey reveals how God often breaks into our darkest moments in subtle, beautiful ways, reminding us to "taste and see that the Lord is good." She shares her insight into how cultivating quiet isn't about withdrawing from the world, but about listening for God's voice amid life's noise. By setting intentional rhythms, practicing liturgical prayers, and honoring her limits as a finite being, Sarah found a way to reclaim her peace and deepen her connection with the infinite God. With anchor verses like Psalm 27 and Psalm 37, Sarah's story is one of choosing beauty, quietness, and trust in God's goodness—even when life feels overwhelming. Be sure to check out Sarah Clarkson's Reclaiming Quiet, available starting tomorrow. This is a book for anyone longing to find peace amid mental health struggles, busyness, and doubts, and to discover that God is present, creating beauty even in our brokenness. Bio: Sarah Clarkson is a writer exploring the realms of beauty and quiet, suffering and imagination. She's the author of seven books, including the upcoming Reclaiming Quiet: Cultivating a Life of Holy Attention. She studied theology (B.Th, MSt in modern doctrine) at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and lives in an old vicarage with her Anglican priest husband and four small children. Anchor Verses: Psalm 27 Psalm 37 Connect with Sarah: Website: sarahclarkson.com IG: https://www.instagram.com/sarahwanders/  Blog: From the Vicarage (⁠sarahclarkson.substack.com⁠). ***We love hearing from our listeners! Sharing your thoughts through reviews is a fantastic way to be a part of our podcast family and contribute to the conversation. If you've enjoyed our podcast, leaving a review is quick and easy! Just head to Apple podcasts or wherever you are tuning in and share your thoughts. Your feedback makes a big difference!***

Alan Gray and Thordis take a look at the plants stunning the visitors at East Ruston Old Vicarage this month, including some unusual foliage plants.PLANT LISTLapageria roseaPassiflora semiciliosaBougainvillea spectabilisMandevillaPleroma urvilleanum syn Tibouchina urvilleanaAbutilon 'Fool's Gold'Iresine herbstii 'Brilliantissima'Strobilanthes dyerianaPlectranthus ciliatus 'Easy Gold'Tradescantia 'Maiden's Blush'Streptocarpus saxorumCamellia sasanquaBerberis gagnepainii var. lanceifolia 'Fernspray'Acer rubrum 'Oktober Glory'Salvia involucrata 'Bethellii'Salvia leucanthaDahlia 'Magenta Star'Dahlia coccinea var. palmeriDahlia 'Labyrinth'Dahlia 'Edith Jones'Dahlia 'Dilys Ayling'

Welcome, my ghouls! In a remote Swedish village lies a vicarage with a history of eerie, unexplainable events. From shadowy figures to the unsettling sound of furniture moving on its own, the walls of Borgvattnet Vicarage are said to harbor more than just memories of the past. Over the decades, countless witnesses have encountered its restless spirits, and one daring priest even tried to banish the hauntings for good. But no one has been able to silence the vicarage's ghostly residents. Will you dare to enter and face the horrors that await?Listener Discretion is Advised***************Leave Us a 5* Rating, it helps the show!Apple Podcast:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beauty-unlocked-the-podcast/id1522636282Spotify Podcast:https://open.spotify.com/show/37MLxC8eRob1D0ZcgcCorA****************Follow Us on Social Media & Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!Instagram:instagram.com/beauty_unlockeds_podcast_hourTikTok:tiktok.com/@beautyunlockedthepodYouTube:@beautyunlockedspodcasthour****************Music & Sound Effects:Epidemic SoundFind the perfect track on Epidemic Sound for your content and take it to the next level! See what the hype is all about!

In which our hero is nowhere to be seen.

Alan Gray and Thordis look back at East Ruston Old Vicarage's starring role on BBC show Gardeners' World, plus container planting, greenhouse overhauling and Hedychiums.PLANT LISTManihot grahamiiPtilotus exaltatusBegonia fuchsioidesTradescantia 'Maiden's Blush'Salvia involucrata 'Bethellii'Ageratum petiolatumPhlox drummondii grandiflora 'Sugar Stars'Coleus argentatus syn Plectranthus argentatu Coleus argentatus 'Hill House'Helichrysum petiolareOsteospermumRicinus communis 'Carmencita'Dahlia 'Jomanda'Hedychium deceptumCanna brasiliensisDahlia 'Ken's Rarity'Dahlia 'Magenta Star'Dahlia coccinea var. palmeri

Not really, we are in no way affiliated to the BBC but the title of this episode will make sense when you listen to it. Matt, Sam and Adrian return with plenty of EFL chat across all 3 divisions - Best of the week - Scouting Reports - Previews - Predicitions - The perils of a chairman tweeting ​​https://quinnbet.click/o/L5trHE?lpage=DXbdHH  How good is this? The guys at QuinnBet have enhanced their UK Welcome Offer, where you can now get a Free Bet up to £50 & 50 Free Spins. Its for New Customers that sign up only. You can check out the full terms and conditions at https://www.quinnbet.com/promotions/sports-up-to-50. It's 18+ and remember folks, Always Gamble Responsibly. Check out Gamcare.org– they are the leading provider for gambling support & run the National Gambling Helpline.

Renovaré Book Club begins September 23. Learn more at renovare.org/bookclub.----Nathan welcomes author Sarah Clarkson to the show to discuss Scottish preacher and fiction writer George MacDonald—a key influence on Sarah's literary career as well as her faith.Show NotesYou can find Sarah writing regularly at her Substack, From the Vicarage (sarahclarkson.substack.com) or discover her books at sarahclarkson.comRecommended by SarahFree online version of The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories Free online version of Princess and the Goblins, one of Sarah's favorite children's novels by MacDonaldFree online version of Lilith, Sarah's favorite adult fairy tale by MacDonaldSarah's friend, Dr. Amanda Vernon, is a MacDonald scholar and children's literature enthusiast.A website dedicated to books, articles, art, and music about, or inspired by, George MacDonald's sermons, lectures, poems, prose, and prayers.Recent Word on Fire edition of The Golden Key.

It's our final interview of season 3! Host Rebecca Thandi Norman talks with G.T. Karber, the creator and author of Murdle murder mystery puzzles. What started as an online game has become a whole universe, with books, a board game, live events, and event the upcoming Murdle Junior! Karber and Rebecca discuss the first Miss Marple novel, Murder at the Vicarage, and how Miss Marple changes over the course of her series. The chat about Miss Marple's power of invisibility, comfort reading, and why Rebecca loves Murdle so much.Get your Murdle book here.Thanks for joining us this season! We'd love to hear from you. If you have any comments, feedback, or just want to say hi, reach out at teaandmurderpodcast@gmail.com or on Instagram at @teaandmurder. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Screams in the middle of the night, Shadows on the walls, apparitions and weird noises all coming from a remote village in the north of Sweden. The old Vicarage building is the scene of a strange story and not a lot of information is available about its history but the stories about the hauntings seem to abound especially now that it is used as a bed and breakfast. What makes this place so haunted? Join your hosts, Anne & Renata to explore the mystery of this building, judged by many as one of the most haunted spots in Europe. Sweden's Most Haunted House - A True Hauntings Podcast SUPPORT THE ADVERTISERS THAT SUPPORT THIS SHOW This Show is Sponsored by BetterHelp - Visit www.BetterHelp.com/P60 for 10% off your first month. Mint Mobile - To get your new wireless plan for just15 bucks a month, and get the plan shipped to your door for FREE, go to www.MintMobile.com/P60 Rocket Money - Start saving money and reclaim control over your finances with www.RocketMoney.com/P60 Haunted Magazine - https://bit.ly/hauntedmagazine Tarot Readings by Winnie - https://www.darknessradio.com/lotus-love-tarot Follow Anne and Renata: Facebook: @AnneAndRenata Instagram: @AnneAndRenata YouTube: @AnneAndRenata TikTok: @AnneAndRenata Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The spirits haunting our podcast are becoming a bit more active… Sven?! This is the house of the most haunted house in Sweden, the Borgvattnet Vicarage. Nearly every living soul to dwell, visit, or experience the Borgvattnet can confirm it is haunted. Not by one, not by two, but by many spirits.  Referenced in the episode: Beware of Ghosts plaque Have ghost stories of your own? E-mail them to us at twogirlsoneghostpodcast@gmail.com Two Girls One Ghost Live: The Conjuring House. Live shows run Sept 7th - Nov 5th, 2023. Find a show NEAR YOU! This episode is sponsored by: Honeylove - Treat yourself to the best shapewear on the market and save 20% off at honeylove.com/TGOG. BetterHelp - Let therapy be your map, with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com/TGOG today to get 10% off your first month. If you enjoy our show, please consider donating to our Patreon. We promise to make it worth your time and we promise not to haunt you. We have a variety of different tiers that will give you access to bonus content, special shoutouts, discounted merch and more! Patreon.com/twogirlsoneghostpodcast. Finally, please Rate and Review the podcast on iTunes & Spotify and follow us on social media! Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Discord. Edited by the very talented Cristina Lumague and original music by Arms Akimbo! Disclaimer: the use of white sage and smudging is a closed practice. If you're looking to cleanse your space, here are some great alternatives!