The Mystery of the Blue Train (Hercule Poirot #5) by Agatha Christie, Hugh Fraser (Narrator)

My husband flipped through the first few pages after I started it and was interested in especially with the train setting. We listened to the rest of it on audiobook which was well done. As this is an early Christie, it was better than The Mysterious Affair at Styles (#1) which I read earlier this year, but not as well done as The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (#3). The use of rich thievery was contrived but oddly less so than the spy stuff in Tuppence and Tommy mystery. It was fun to listen to it with my partner and he picked the murderer early on.

1.25x. September 6-10, 2025.

Mina’s Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa

As I loved The Housekeeper and the Professor last year, I was looking forward to this novel. I had no idea what it was about before starting. While it is longer than Housekeeper, it had even less plot. It was a slow paced and nostalgic novel about a girl who lived with her more wealthy relatives in 1972. She has an asthmatic cousin named Mina and there is a pygmy hippopotamus as a pet. Other than that, the book is not really unusual. I was surprised with how emotional I got during the only eventful moment in the book. I really like Ogawa’s prose and she is starting to become one of my favourite Japanese writers. I will have to go read The Memory Police next.

September 7-13, 2025. Read partially on Kobo Clara BW.