A Star Over Bethlehem - Agatha Christie Mallowan

Star Over Bethlehem and Other Stories - Agatha Christie Mallowan, Agatha Christie

One of my christmas gifts last year-- a book of holiday-themed short stories and poems by Agatha Christie.

 

I particularly liked Agatha's short stories. She's a master of characterization and emotion, and it was good to escape the framework of finding a dead body in chapter 1 and having everything nicely wrapped up in 200 pages or so.

 

The Water Bus and The Island were my favorite of these. Obvs these stories are going to be Christian in setting and message, otherwise why are we talking about Christmas?

 

After the first third of the book, devoted to short stories, the rest is a collection of Agatha Christie poetry. While Agatha is not a bad poet, and certainly has a gift with words, she's also not a great poet, either. The poetry section of the book was dull and overlong, and I probably won't revisit it.

 

The prose, however, will probably be shared with family around the fireplace, as the kind of stories one shares with family around christmastime.