back to article Weekend reads: A new Poirot, drug-fuelled Champagne Supernovas and The Establishment

El Reg bookworms Mark Diston and Lucy Orr pore over the latest book releases. Owen Jones, author of Chavs , has a pop at the establishment, Maureen Callahan gets right under the skin of the fashion world's excesses in the 1990s, and Sophie Hannah's new work is the supposed "literary event of the year" – a brand new Poirot …

  1. Vociferous

    So...

    ...when will the inevitable Poirot reboot directed by JJ Abrams be released?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So...

      Oh no... the 27th remake of 'Murder on the Orient Express' this time set on a train between Vegas and LA. How else will they get the hordes on 3rd rate actors and fading superstars away from their Beverly hill mansions?

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: So...

        No it will be set on a bus, which is nuclear powered with a deadly virus onboard and will explode if it goes below 55mph and the driver has food poisoning so a passenger with a past has to take over the controls.....

        1. tony2heads

          Re: So...

          you forgot the snakes

  2. Chris Miller

    Owen Jones is one of a dwindling species, someone from a working class background

    Not everyone from Sheffield who can put on a south Yorkshire accent is working class. His father was a very senior trade unionist and his mother was a university lecturer. He was parachuted as a policy research wonk into the Labour party, and has never done a day's work in his life. None of us can do much about our origins, but if Owen Jones is working class, I'm Marie of Romania. His only purpose on The Guardian is to make George Moonbat and Polly Twaddle look like intellectuals. This review, like the book itself, is very poor sixth-form stuff. For a better one, you could do much worse than to look here.

    1. IHateWearingATie

      To be fair to Owen Jones, if asked he always says he had a middle class upbringing - I think people just assume he's working class as he's from the North, and is all flat caps and whippets up there isn't it?

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. Pen-y-gors

    Peter Wimsey

    Sometimes authors can get it right when they write a follow-up using characters created by a dead author - Jill Paton Walsh has done a few good books in the Peter Wimsey series, (some based on papers/drafts by Dorothy Sayers admittedly). If they work well then they can help tie up loose ends in the story of a long-lasting character.

    1. Cian Duffy

      Re: Peter Wimsey

      While I've not read every single Poirot book, I'm not sure there are that many loose ends to tie up - Christie herself did a decent enough job with Curtain - originally intended to be released after her death but eventually released before it.

      I've a sneaking suspicion they want to get a few more novels out to get made for TV as Suchet is still able to deliver...

  4. banjomike
    Thumb Up

    Death on the Nile, directed by Michael Bay

    I've started to read Monogram Murders but from the first page it just doesn't work. It reads like a novel based on a David Suchet episode written by someone who had never read Agatha Christie.

  5. DocJames
    Mushroom

    Groucho Marx

    said it best: "The covers of this book are too far apart."

    1. banjomike

      Re: Groucho Marx

      Groucho Marx said it best: "The covers of this book are too far apart."

      Good quote but not Groucho unless he said it when he was nine years old (date of earliest attribution)

  6. tony2heads
    Paris Hilton

    T.S Eliot

    The quote you should have used:

    Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

    Icon: who else

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Massive Plodders

    When I opened up the photo of Kate Moss used on the front page to link to this article, I have to say, she's got HUGE feet!

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon