The first and last case of Hercule Poirot
Agatha Christie: Thy Mysterious Affair at Styles Agatha Christie: Curtain Agatha Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published in 1920 and soon brought fame to the author and also to her fictional detective, Poirot. Hercule Poirot investigates in a total of 33 novels and 7 short story collections. Since The Mysterious Affair at Styles, there have been many movie, theater, cartoon and graphic novel adaptations. There was even a video game made about the Belgian detective, and his most famous movie actor is David Suchet. Adaptation of the stories is still happening in the form of movies and series. Thanks to Sophie Hannah, we can see the world’s most famous detective investigating again in book pages. Poirot arrives in Styles St. Mary as a refugee, where he soon has to investigate the death of his benefactor in a house where no one lived happily. The author was…
The last chapter of the last story
Tove Jansson: Moominvalley in November (Sort of Books 2018) This is the last, strangest and most adult volume of the Moomin series. There have been many stories about the Moomins over the years: they sailed through a flood, they expected the end of the world due to the approach of a comet, a wizard’s top hat changed everything around them, they lost their home, they woke up from their winter sleep and saw the frozen world and sailed to a lonely island. However, what was common in all the stories was that they made many friends because everyone loved them. Not only were they nice, but they listened to everyone. This does not mean that they always pleased their guests, but they knew that they often did their best to leave the other person alone. Everyone who met them loved them. However, they did not appear in this book… It…
Lost Worlds
Shannon Messenger: Keeper of the Lost Cities (Simon &Schuster 2012) Many thanks to Maxim Könyvkiadó for sending me the book! Sophie never found her place. At the age of 12, she was already attending high school, but she couldn’t fit in there either. Moreover, she can hear everyone’s thoughts. One day, however, she meets Fitz, whose mind she can’t read. The boy also has this ability and reveals a secret to Sophie: the girl doesn’t actually belong in our world. Sophie now has to leave behind her previous life, which she didn’t love, but was the only one she knew. Now she has to face dangers that could determine not only her fate, but also the fate of others. The book features friendship as well as rivalry between children, which is provided by the excellent background of the school where elves with special abilities study. Secrets play a very important…
The inhabitants of Moominvalley
Tove Jansson: Finn Family Moomintroll (first published in 1948) Tove Jansson: Moominland Midwinter (first published in 1957) Tove Jansson: Tales from Moominvalley (first published in 1962) Tove Jansson is Scandinavia’s best-known children’s author (along with Astrid Lindgren), whose work is also significant as an illustrator, comic book writer and adult’s book writer. She finished her first book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, which was published exactly 80 years ago, in 1945, but unfortunately not in Hungarian. The book was followed by eight more, which were not only exciting because of their stories but also for their translations. The author belonged to the Swedish minority living in Finland and wrote her books in her native language, Swedish. However, the world got to know the Moomins from translations made based on the Finnish adaptation not from the Swedish original. The first Hungarian translation of the Tales from Moominvalley was published by…