Episode 3: The Importance of Detective Fiction
In this conversation, Angelina and Cindy talk all things related to the detective novel. Why do we love detective fiction so much? What are the qualities of a good detective novel? What is the history of detective fiction, and how did World War I bring about the Golden Age of the genre? Angelina and Cindy answer all these questions and more. Be sure to scroll down for links to all the books and authors mentioned in this episode!
Listen to The Lit Life:
The Listeners
by Walter de la Mare
‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:—
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.
Book List:
The World’s Last Night and Lilies That Fester by C.S. Lewis
The Five Red Herrings,Murder Must Advertise, and Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers
Nancy Drew #45: The Spider Sapphire Mystery by Carolyn Keene
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Footsteps at the Lock by Ronald Knox
Multiple novels by Agatha Christie
Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe
The Moonstone and The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
The Albert Campion series by Margery Allingham
The Roderick Alleyn series by Ngaio Marsh
The Flavia de Luce series by Allen Bradley
The Inspector Appleby Mystery series by Michael Innes
The Daughter of Time and Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey
Murder Fantastical by Patricia Moyes
The Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)
Multiple novels by Alexander McCall Smith
Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series by Laurie King
The Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Chronicles of Brother Cadfael series by Ellis Peters
The Adam Dalgliesh Series by P.D. James
Connect with Us:
Find Angelina at https://angelinastanford.com and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/
Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/
Jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB
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6 Comments
Sara
Very fun listen! Can you provide the link or list of Dr. Grant’s recommendations that you mentioned? Thanks!
Cindy Rollins
1. Oxford Book of English Verse, Arthur Quiller-Couch 2. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien 3. The Father Brown Stories, G.K. Chesterton 4. Witch Wood, John Buchan 5. The Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot 6. The Space Trilogy, C.S. Lewis 7. A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 8. The Four Men, Hilaire Belloc 9. Penhally, Caroline Gordon 10. Collected Stories, William Faulkner 11. The Wizzard of Oz, L.Frank Baum 12. Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White 13. Scaramouche, Rafael Sabatini 14. The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco 15. Kristen Lavransdatter, Sigrid Undset 16. Love in the Ruins, Walker Percy 17. The Velvet Horn, Andrew Lytle 18. The Footsteps at the Lock, Ronald Knox 19. The Weekend Wodehouse, P.G. Wodehouse 20. Falling, Colin Thubron 21. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingles Wilder 22. The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers 23. Song of the Lark, Willa Cather 24. Possession, A.S. Byatt 25. At Home in Mitford, Jan Karon
Amy H.
Really enjoying these episodes! In a future episode, can you say more about Commonplace books? Are they just for cool quotes you run across while reading? Do you log all your reading in them, even if you don’t quote it? Do you do any personal journaling/reflections in them? Do you index them at all, if not, how do you find a quote you copied? Very intrigued!! Thank you!
Katie
I have to confess I listened to this mostly because I was intrigued as to why anyone would think that detective novels were important. I stand thoroughly corrected!
I narrated the podcast to my husband when we were on a car journey with our children, and of course he wanted to listen too after that. My children didn’t appear to take any notice, but the next day, I spotted my 9 y.o. walking around with an Encyclopedia Brown book, and he asked me at bedtime to re-read some Father Brown stories. I’d not read any of Sayers’ work before, so this has been a good introduction for me.
Katie C
Neither one of you mentioned the Father Brown Series by GK Chesterton. They were written from 1910-1936, so they fit into the time frame of post ww1 detective stories that you were talking about. Were they not mentioned by accident or are they not some of your favorites?
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