some favorites

• Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin series
• PG Wodehouse: many many titles
• Jane Austen's 6 novels
• Ring Lardner: You Know Me Al
• Josephine Tey: The Franchise Affair; Brat Farrar
• The Provincial Lady in America by E. M. Delafield
• George Smiley books by John le Carre
• A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
• Colin Dexter: Inspector Morse mysteries
• Agatha Christie (esp. Miss Marple)
• Wilkie Collins: The Moonstone; The Woman in White
• Ngaio Marsh mysteries
• Bruce Marshall: The World, The Flesh, and Father Smith
• Lassie Come-Home by Eric Knight
• James Herriot: All Creatures Great and Small series
• Thomas Hardy: Tess of the D'Urbervilles
• Charles Dickens

favorite mystery writers

The best mysteries feature poison pen letters, herbaceous borders, a corpse before page 20, and buckets of strong tea.

Agatha Christie, the Original and the Best

Notable titles:

Sad Cypress
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
A Pocketful of Rye
The Moving Finger

She published from 1920 to the 70's.


Dorothy Sayers
The nine Peter Wimseys are must-reads. Written in the 20's and 30's.

Ngaio Marsh
Publishing from 1934 until her death in 1982. A pro.

Josephine Tey
The Franchise Affair and Brat Farrar , written in the 40's, are especially good.

P D James
Writing from the 60's to the present. See post.

Colin Dexter
Good old Inspector Morse. Lovable in spite of his various personal problems. The Morse books were written between 1975 and 1999.