Youtube has the 1984 TV version with Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes.  It’s broken up into 6 10-minute parts.  Here is part 1 and all other parts are linked to that video.  It’s pretty fabulous and I encourage you to watch!  Jeremy Brett is really wonderful as Holmes.  I could watch him all day!

You can also read the story for free here on DailyLit.  You may need to register, but Daily Lit is a fabulous site full of free books (they do also have some more modern books that you can pay to read, but I guarantee that you will never run out of free content).  They do have more Holmes and some Agatha Christie!  Daily Lit allows you to read the story in full right on their website, or you can sign up for the stories to be emailed to you in parts.  Check it out!

Marple

A Carribbean Mystery

The Thirteen Problems (The Tuesday Club Murders)

Poirot

“It is true that I can speak the exact, the idiomatic English. But, my friend, to speak the broken English is an enormous asset. It leads people to despise you. They say, “A foreigner; he can’t even speak English properly.” . . And so, you see, I put people off their guard. Besides, it has become a habit”-Three Act Tragedy

Random Poirot fact: Poirot is the only fictional character to be honored with a front page obituary in the New York Times. 

Murder on the Orient Express

The ABC Murders

Holmes

The Adventure of the Speckled Band (short story)

The Sign of the Four (novel)

Interesting tidbit: In 1889, Doyle was commissioned to write The Sign of the Four for Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine at a dinner in London that was also attended by Oscar Wilde.  Doyle described the dinner as a “golden evening” and Wilde contributed The Picture of Dorian Gray to the magazine one year later.  I’m a huge Wilde fan so this was really interesting for me!  I had really never connected the two authors.

Great sites:

Hercule Poirot Central (also a depot of Miss Marple and Agatha Christie in general- plus the site has amazing art deco design)

Sherlock Holmes Museum-If you are ever in London, please take their tour!  I’ve been on it twice, once when I was 10 and once when I was 18, and it was equally enjoyable at both ages!

Side note: I’ve had to keep my faucets dripping at night for the past week due to Atlanta experiencing an actual form of Winter this year.  I do not want to know how large my usually-$20 water bill is going to be for January. 

1.  Knitting needles

2. Magnificent moustaches

3. Pipes that are usually filled with tobacco, but sometimes that kooky rascal Opium shows up too.

Put them all together and what have you got….

That’s right.  Kals is calling on all book lovers to get knee-deep in stories from three of the greatest mystery solving characters EVER.  The challenge is a year long undertaking beginning on January 1, 2010 and ending on December 31, 2010.  The basic premise is to choose two books from each of our nosy crime fighters and complete them within the year.  Please read the full details and sign up here.

I, for one, am really frigging excited about it.

Shutter Island is set in the mid 1950’s where we find two U.S. Marshals, Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule, who have taken an assignment at Ashcliffe Hospital located on a small island off the coast of Massachusetts.  Now I don’t know about you, but any time there is a hospital located on an island it’s pretty easy to guess that it’s not a hospital for happy children and their pet unicorns.  In this case it’s a hospital for the criminally insane and Teddy and Chuck have been given the lucky assignment to investigate the disappearance of one of the patients.  The plot moves along very quickly and soon enough readers are wondering, along with Chuck and Teddy, how exactly a criminally insane patient disappears from their locked cell past a myriad of guards and obstacles.  When we start to get hints of the hospital’s administration using the patients for radical experimental surgery, readers will know that there is an inside job to uncover.  And that uncovering is not going to go smoothly. 

Lehane wrote this book back in 2003 but the past few years have created additional publicity due to Martin Scorsese showing interest in making a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio.  After a few setbacks, the movie is currently slated to debut in February of 2010.  Here is the latest trailer for your viewing pleasure:

Book description from the publisher:

Jessica’s much-deserved cruise becomes a working vacation when her friend Kathy tags along, hoping to locate her sister Wilimena, who vanished from the same vessel. Distantly related to Alaska’s most famous madam-a woman who may have struck it rich during the Gold Rush-Wilimena apparently took the cruise to find the treasure. Now, as Jessica and Kathy investigate Wilimena’s disappearance, they learn that she was quite outspoken about her gold claim-and may have attracted the wrong kind of attention. And now that attention has been turned on Jessica and Kathy.

Realistic description courtesy of moi:

Jessica Fletcher cannot pass up an opportunity to be the center of attention so she reluctantly agrees to allow her friend, Kathy, to accompany her on a cruise to search for her Kathy’s missing sexually promiscuous sister.  Strangely enough, her sexually promiscuous sister went missing while looking for the hidden gold left by her sexually promiscuous distant relative.  Jessica mentions Cabot Cove as much as possible and harasses cruisers for information.  When the cruise security officer becomes annoyed about the harassment, Jessica places him on her suspect list.  Kathy becomes quickly involved with a fellow voyager and works very hard to suppress her sexually promiscuous lineage with this handsome stranger.  Shockingly, we later find out that his quick love advances were not for good.  In the meantime, Jessica tampers with many crime scenes and the police chuckle at her curiosity as if they were dealing with a child investigating a fictitious crime scene…oh, wait.  In the end, Jessica gets all the credit.  I wonder if I said sexually promiscuous enough?

Seriously though, if you have read any of the Murder, She Wrote books you will know that they are unintentionally comical and that is what makes them so great.  These books are perfect for a light, no pressure read.  As annoying as Jessica Fletcher is, you will grow to love her and her ability to take over police investigations while insisting that solving mysteries is just a silly hobby of hers.  She is nosy, overly polite, and every law officer that she runs into will grant her more leniency than if the President of the United States showed up to have a look-see.  She talks constantly of her home in Cabot Cove, Maine and how wonderful it is.  Trust her, watching whales in their natural habitat in Alaska has nothing on the donut shop in Cabot Cove.  Jessica also makes it a point of mentioning that she does not drive to anyone who will listen, but she is able to guide a flaming plane to safety in a hurricane.

All hilarity aside, this book wasn’t anything unusual compared to the others in this series but I also did not find it overly thrilling.  Readers will probably miss the usual Cabot Cove characters as they are left at home for this cruise adventure.  Her friend Kathy is annoying at best and her need for assurance from Jessica quickly becomes old.  Even Jessica seems tired of the whole situation at times.  An Alaskan cruise really should have warranted some vivid and exciting description but the book focuses mainly on the relatively shallow characters.  I, for one, hope to never hear about Kathy’s personal problems in any future books.  While Panning for Murder was an entertaining read, I would definitely recommend most of the other editions in this series over this particular one.

The two books I have finished are Murder, She Wrote: Panning for Murder and Shutter Island.  I credit the Murder, She Wrote book for getting me back in the swing of things as it was a light, easy, no-pressure book.  However, Shutter Island was SO good and it’s really the thing that motivated me to keep up with my books-to-read pile.  It had the craziest twist that made my jaw drop.  I finished the book and still wasn’t sure I believed it!  I’ll be doing reviews on both very soon.

Right now I am knee-deep in Things Worth Remembering which I won in a book giveaway sponsored by Callapidder Days and I will probably finish it tonight.  I must admit that when I first read the description I thought it was going to be too…flowery for me.  It’s a mother-daughter type story and I was afraid it was going to end up being full-on sappy.  But I gave it a try last night and could NOT put it down.  I’ve been thinking about it all day and can’t wait to snuggle into bed tonight to finish it.  I’m also already planning on passing it along to my mom who I think will also enjoy it.

So that’s a quick update from me.  I’m sorry I disappeared for a bit but I think my disappearance was just what the doctor ordered to get me back into reading.  Hope everyone in the blog world is doing well!

It’s Brag Monday over at the Graphics Fairy again and my latest piece of work with Karen’s graphics is my blog header! It got a bit chopped up due to size restrictions for custom headers here at wordpress but I think it looks pretty spiffy! I added a lemon-lime title inside the frame which leaves it super girly but a little fall-ish too

Here is the full size version:

Which I made out of this frame:

If you haven’t visited Karen before please do. She makes wonderful graphics available to everyone for FREE!

Given to me by Kals over at At Pemberly and Velvet at vvb32reads. Thanks so much you two!!

The award is for:

Blogs that receive the Let’s Be Friends Award are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers.

I would like to pass this award along to:

Heather at Gofita’s Pages

Stephanie at Stephanie’s Written Word (she has a new website, have you checked it out yet??!!)

Nina at J’adoreHappyEndings

Katrina at Callipidder Days

Kat at Little Yuzu

Jeannette at A Comfy Chair and A Good Book

Colette at A Buckeye Girl Reads

Suko at Suko’s Notebook

All of these bloggers are not only charming and friendly, but also great writers who love books!