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All About Agatha is a podcast all about, well, Agatha. Agatha Christie, of course: the Queen of Crime, a real-life Dame of the British Empire, and author of sixty-six mystery novels that spanned the Twentieth Century, defining a genre. For five years, Catherine Brobeck and Kemper Donovan revisited these novels in publication order, ranking them according to pre-set criteria (plot, character, etc.). Tragically, Catherine Brobeck passed away at the end of 2021. Since then, Kemper has completed ...
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A podcast where we talk about our book of the week. Read along with us!
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Overbearing, Rich, and Idiomatic: The Americans of Agatha Christie
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It's time to discuss those pesky Americans who appear in the Christie canon, and answer such burning questions as: Are all Americans millionaires? (Alas, no.) Do all Americans speak solely by way of idiom? (Happily, no.) I was also able to answer a ton of mailbag questions, which involved one hundred percent more Spice Girls than I expected it to. …
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Anna and Annie discuss the 2024 Women's Prize winners. We reveal our best books of 2024 so far. Our favourite reads are: THE ALTERNATIVES by Caoilinn Hughes HOME READING SERVICE by Fabio Morábito translated by Curtis Bauer NOT THE END OF THE WORLD by Hannah Ritchie THUNDERHEAD by Miranda Darling REAL AMERICANS by Rachel Khong THE SQUARE OF SEVENS b…
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Collecting the Collectors: The Gays of Agatha Christie (Special *PRIDE* Edition... with Bonus Jamie Bernthal!)
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It's raining long-haired, antique-loving, architecturally-inclined men! And a few women, too! June is Pride month for the LGBTQIA+ community here in the United States, which I took as an opportunity to explore the topic of "gay" characters in Christie... along with revisiting an interview Catherine Brobeck and I did with long-time friend of the pod…
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Interview with Journalist Karen Robinson on the Discovery of a Rare, Early Agatha Christie Artifact
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It isn't every day a new discovery is made regarding a physical record of Agatha Christie's writing, especially one from her earliest days as a writer.... Thank you to journalist Karen Robinson for sitting down with me to talk about What We Did in the Great War by Agatha Christie... and by others in the VAD in Torquay during the First World War! It…
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Ep 265: The Busy Body with Kemper Donovan
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A special episode! Anna chats with author Kemper Donovan about his new crime novel THE BUSY BODY, the first in the Ghostwriter series. A contemporary murder mystery told in the spirit of the Golden Age by the host of the All About Agatha podcast, THE BUSY BODY has been described as Veep meets Agatha Christie and a 'witty and highly entertaining mys…
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Ten Little Poirots & Marples: Ranking Agatha Christie's Detectives on the Screen
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It's another episode focused on the adaptations of Agatha Christie: specifically, those talented actors who have brought life to Monsieur Poirot and Miss Marple in films and television for nearly 100 years now. Who will win the title of Greatest Poirot and Greatest Marple of Them All? And how will the rankings leading up to my #1 picks shake out? I…
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Anna and Annie discuss the 2024 Stella Prize winner and the Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist. Our book of the week is Thunderhead by Miranda Darling. A black comedy, set in suburbia, about one woman's struggle to be free, it has been described as a 'feminist triumph and homage to Virginia Woolf' (Australian Book Review). We love a short novel an…
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Anna and Annie find some book recommendations to read along with Taylor Swift's new album The Tortured Poets Department. Our book of the week is Question 7 by Richard Flanagan. This memoir encompasses H. G. Wells, nuclear physics and the atomic bomb and ends in Tasmania, Australia. Memories, encounters and fictional vignettes are woven together int…
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*LIVE!* Episode: Interview with Kemper Donovan, Author of The Busy Body (and Busman's Holidayer)
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Saturday, April 27th is Independent Bookstore Day here in the United States, and what better way to celebrate than with this live interview from my book tour last week at Schuler Books in Grand Rapids, Michigan?! Special thanks to Elizabeth Bosscher for conducting this interview. I had such a great time sitting down with her. If you'd like to visit…
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Ep 262: Butter by Asako Yuzuki translated by Polly Barton
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Anna and Annie discuss the 2024 Stella Prize shortlist. Our book of the week is Butter by Asako Yuzuki translated by Polly Barton. Described as 'a novel of food and murder' this follows Riko, a journalist, who investigates serial killer Manako Kajii. Kajii allegedly seduced rich men with her cooking before killing them, and she encourages Riko to c…
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Interview with Andrew Winans, Director of The Hollow by Agatha Christie
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Andrew Winans is the director of a new off-Broadway production of Christie's theatrical adaptation of her superb novel, The Hollow. I loved getting to speak with someone who has been in the trenches with his cast of actors and crew of professionals over the past few months, bringing this Agatha Christie play to life.... To purchase tickets for this…
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Anna and Annie discuss the 2024 Stella Prize Shortlist. We reveal our favourite recent crime reads. Our recommendations are: The Many Lies of Veronica Hawkins by Kristina Perez Death of a Lesser God by Vaseem Khan The Sleeping Nymph by Ilaria Tutti translated by Ekin Oklap To Love and Be Wise by Josephine Tey The Fugitives by Jamal Mahjoub Everyone…
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Next week's episode will be a discussion with Andrew Winans, the director of an upcoming Off-Broadway production of The Hollow, a play written by Agatha Christie, based on her novel. If you are interested in attending this production, which runs from 13-21 April in New York, go ahead and click here. And my East Coast/Midwest tour of the United Stat…
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Ep 260: Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead with Jenny Hollander
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A special episode: we chat with author Jenny Hollander about her debut crime novel EVERYONE WHO CAN FORGIVE ME IS DEAD. Charlie Colbert is an editor at a major magazine and engaged to a publishing heir. But she witnessed a tragedy at her elite journalism school and lied to the police 9 years ago. Now a classmate is making a film about the events, w…
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Klaxon Bell Bonanza: The Actress by Agatha Christie
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If you're a longtime listener of this podcast, you'll know never to trust an actor in a Christie story. So what happens when not one but two actors feature among the rather small cast of suspects? A lot, as it turns out, in this early short story that showcases Christie's unique ability to spin seemingly endless variations on a single puzzle.... In…
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Ranking Some (But Not All!) of the Various Screen Adaptations of Agatha Christie (with Teresa Peschel)
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Quick: what is the best Joan Hickson adaptation of a Miss Marple novel? Or how about your least favorite Suchet episode? If you like pondering such questions, then this is the episode for you! Just beware of spoilers; I list all the novels Teresa and I spoil in the course of this wide-ranging conversation at the top of the episode. To buy tickets t…
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The Island by Agatha Christie Mallowan (with Guest Co-Host Sarah Hinlicky Wilson)
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Sarah Hinlicky Wilson is back! And with this episode, she’s officially earned her title as All About Agatha’s resident expert on Christian theology. I leaned heavily on her expertise for this episode, which involves a lot of parsing of Biblical and even apocryphal references, as we discussed this curious, fascinatingly revealing short story from th…
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Anna and Annie discuss the inaugural Women's Prize for Non-Fiction longlist, including Anna Funder's Wifedom. Our book of the week is THE VULNERABLES by Sigrid Nunez. This is the third in a loose trilogy after THE FRIEND and WHAT ARE YOU GOING THROUGH. A writer, a college drop-out and a talking parrot share an apartment in New York during the Covid…
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Agatha Christie's Most Prolific Stage Actor? Interview with Lee Samuel Tanng
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Actor Lee Samuel Tanng has appeared in TEN (!!) regional productions of plays based on Agatha Christie novels over the last eleven years. He sat down with me to discuss the joys of regional theater, the particular challenges (and advantages) of pulling off a murder mystery in real time, and of course, to rank his ten experiences from least to most …
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Ep 258: Home Reading Service with Shawn Mooney
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It's the Shawn and Anna Book Club! Our first book is Home Reading Service by Fabio Morábito translated by Curtis Bauer. Eduardo is sentenced to a year of community service reading aloud to the elderly and disabled. Set in Mexico, this novel is witty and poignant. It even inspired us to discuss poetry! And the fine line between whacky and eccentric.…
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All About The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie (Spoiler-Free!)
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Perhaps it was inevitable that an episode about the longest-running play in history would be the longest episode ever produced on this podcast.... And yet there's nary a spoiler in it; so tuck in, safe in the knowledge that the secret of The Mousetrap remains safely locked in my heart. Nibble nibble. Squeak squeak. Special thanks to my guests Phil …
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Interview (#2!) with Alex Michaelides, Author of The Fury
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Alex Michaelides has a new mystery out, and I had such a great time geeking out with him about Agatha Christie and other literary inspirations of his, including the great Ruth Rendell. You can purchase Alex's new book, The Fury, in the United States here. And you can pre-order it in the UK (it's out February 1st) here. You can purchase my new book,…
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Putting On an Agatha Christie Play (with Three Guest Co-Hosts)
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I've talked a bunch--especially recently--about Agatha Christie and the theater. But what is it like to put on an Agatha Christie play? In particular, in one of those smaller regional/community venues that so frequently put on Christie's plays? Thanks to the three experts I gathered together for this episode, we can begin to answer that question. Y…
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A Christmas Christie for Christmas: The Naughty Donkey by Agatha Christie Mallowan (with bonus rerun of Star Over Bethlehem)
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And you thought the days of bumper-sized episodes of All About Agatha were behind you.... This one might be a bit of a cheat, since it's a Frankenstein's monster (a Bella Baxter?!) of a few different things: 1) a nice long "mail bag"/"housekeeping" segment; 2) a fresh episode analyzing "The Naughty Donkey" in Christie's Star Over Bethlehem and Othe…
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Anna and Annie reveal our book recommendations for the holiday season. Our favourite holiday reads this year are: THE CLUB by Ellery Lloyd NOW YOU SEE US by Balli Kaur Jaswal WEST HEART KILL by Dann McDorman FLIGHT by Lynn Steger Strong THE LIBRARIANIST by Patrick deWitt ROMANTIC COMEDY by Curtis Sittenfeld Follow us! Email: booksonthegopodcast @ g…
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How to Survive an Agatha Christie Novel, with Author Kate Jackson
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Kate Jackson knows her stuff when it comes to classic crime, and then some. I had such a good time talking to her about non-Christie authors of the Golden Age, and then engaging in a choose-your-own-adventure-style exercise that took us through various plot points she meticulously pulled from scores of Christie novels, short stories, and plays. Wha…
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Interview with Sophie Hannah re: The Mystery of Mr E
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It's time to discuss friend of the podcast Sophie Hannah's murder mystery musical movie!! Mystery and musical fans, unite!! To rent/buy Sophie's movie in the U.S., click here. To rent/buy Sophie's movie in the UK, click here. To visit and subscribe to the podcast's Patreon page, click here. You can pre-order my mystery novel, The Busy Body, in the …
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Anna and Annie discuss the Booker Prize 2023 winner, PROPHET SONG by Paul Lynch. We reveal the best books we read in 2023. In no particular order, they are: Collected Works by Lydia Sandgren translated by Agnes Broomé Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton Girl in a Pink Dress by Kylie Needham The Gobli…
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Interview with Mark Shanahan, Playwright and Director of a New Adaptation of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
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If you like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, then this episode is for you! If you like theater, then this episode is *really* for you! Mark was a delight; his passion for Ackroyd, theater, and all things Agatha Christie shines through our entire conversation. Enjoy! Click here to download the Orson Welles radio adaptation of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd…
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Ep 255: Collected Works by Lydia Sandgren translated by Agnes Broomé
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Anna and Annie discuss authors' concerns about Spotify streaming books and highlights from the 2024 Adelaide Writers Week lineup. Our book of the week is Collected Works by Lydia Sandgren translated by Agnes Broomé. Sandgren has been described as "Sweden's Sally Rooney" (The Times). Collected Works is a thought-provoking, intellectual novel set in …
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Interview with Booktuber (and Agatha Christie Enthusiast) Mara Sinclair
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What an excellent opportunity this conversation was to use--and explain--such new-fangled terms as "Booktube," "Bookstagram," and "BookTok." If the online world of readerly appreciation befuddles you (as it often does me), then allow Mara Sinclair to explain all.... For more Mara in your life, check out her YouTube Channel, Bookslikewhoa. You can a…
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