An aside: I wish people would stop looking for a meaning behind the final episode of The Sopranos. I know most people like a nice tidy ending, but I like it when I get to choose the ending.

I am rereading Agatha Christie mysteries on the bus-- I can do about 1 and 1/2 books per day. And while they are enjoyable, I keep being shocked by the racism and classism in them. I can't tell if Agatha Christie is brilliantly skewering the attitudes of the British at the time, or is so steeped in that culture that she doesn't even notice.

Also, I am finding a couple of the mystery "surprises" seem a little bit like cheating. That is, she writes thoughts from the point of view of the murder and doesn't include the murderous thoughts. I a little disappointed as they were favorites growing up.

They are, however, perfect bus books-- small, paperback, quick and absorbing. I tried to read a biography of Elizabeth I and two Jodi Picoult books on the bus, and I couldn't concentrate.

I would so dig that HP ending.

I would so dig that HP ending.

JK Rowling would be living like Salman Rushdie used to if she went that route. She'd probably need more protection, actually.

I can't tell if Agatha Christie is brilliantly skewering the attitudes of the British at the time, or is so steeped in that culture that she doesn't even notice.

I'd say the latter. I love AC (and have a complete faux-leather set I collected in a monthly book club through high school and into college!), but yeah, her books aren't exactly PC and she often "cheats" in the whodunits.

I vote with Megan. And I hate the cheaterliness. But when she sticks to the detective's POV, I like her storytelling better.

I keep being shocked by the racism and classism in them. I can't tell if Agatha Christie is brilliantly skewering the attitudes of the British at the time, or is so steeped in that culture that she doesn't even notice.

Same thing happened to me with my vintage Nancy Drews. It shocked me so badly I packed them away. I was going to sell them, but inertia borne of not wanting to pass along books containing such attitudes (and okay, pure laziness) has so far prevented me.

I don't think Agatha Christie mysteries are as bad as early Nancy Drews (although I suppose it depends what year series you have as they went through many incarnations for precisely that reason).

I don't think Agatha Christie mysteries are as bad as early Nancy Drews (although I suppose it depends what year series you have as they went through many incarnations for precisely that reason).

On the other hand, I think Nancy Drew at least avoided using the n-word in one of the titles. That one is probably my favorite Christie book (not that I've read a lot of them), and pretty atypical for her from what I gather.

I'm trying to think of other mass-market (as opposed to "literature")books I've read that were written in the 1930s to compare on the race issue, and the only ones I can think of are the Little House books, in which Wilder only encounters African-Americans once (the doctor in The Little House on the Prairie), and views Indians in a much more sympathetic light than her mother saw them. Her opinions on Indians were obviously shaped by the fact that she was on the verge of the frontier most of her life, and sensed the passing of what had gone before as it was changing throughout her childhood.