Chilly winds which have just begun to blow across Bhopal will soon become chillier. Many places in the state have already started freezing, heralding the second week of December. For a book lover, this is the right time to open some pages of an Agatha Christie novel to enjoy reading them again, soaking up the sun, lying on a pair of chaise lounge chairs. There are many authors.
Why only Agatha Christie? She is the brand ambassador of crime thriller writers. Nearly 48 years have passed since she died, but the charms of her words still linger. This is the reason why a few companies have made coffee mugs, tea sets, tote bags, eyewear cases, and other gift items with the sketches of her countenance and those of her detective Hercules Poirot printed on them to promote reading habits among children. On some, her quotes and photographs of her novels are printed. These items remind her readers of the environment she created in her novels nearly 100 years ago, which still charms them.
A mug, with her portrait printed on it and filled with hot black coffee and smoke coming out of it, will add an extra tang to the reading of her novels. So is it with Hercules Poirot blue coffee mug. There are a few other mugs with the illustrations of detective’s golden spectacles and a quote from one of Christie’s novels. There is a burgundy Miss Marple mug decked up with Tea and Scandal at 4:30 quote. The author’s world and her characters have been elegantly drawn on these mugs.
The Christie eyewear cases are no less attractive than the coffee mugs. These cases are titivated with a golden motif with the Poirot inscription below it, and one may take pride in possessing such items. One may also take pride in possessing a Christie navy blue tote bag in which many things can be carried. On the tote bags Christie’s face, Poirot’s countenance, and Orient Express have been printed, but the most beautiful one carries three portraits of young Christie. Even if someone hangs it from the wall of his room, it will attract a visitor.
When the icy evening descends, booklovers may like to get themselves cooped up in their rooms and sit beside a blower – because burning woods has been prohibited – and begin to sift through the pages of Christie’s novel, sipping a cup of hot coffee. Christie once said, “All you need is a chair and a table and a typewriter and a bit of peace.” One can find this quotation printed on a tote bag or on a coffee mug. Christie, who always had a romantic relation with black coffee, wrote a play, Black Coffee in 1929 and described it as a conventional spy thriller in her autobiography in 1977.
If someone has already raced his way through ‘And Then There Were None’, it is time to pick up ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ from an old bookcase and begin to read it again, even if he has already done that. Snowdrifts halt the stylish Orient Express at night. Mr Ratchet is found murdered in his compartment the next morning. Because the train could not move further, it is believed that the killer is still on the train, when Poirot appears on the scene, he finds the case a big challenge to work out. Christie packs all the strange incidents into the novel.
If one begins to read it in the evening, one will find each page becoming more interesting than the other. So, it is time to buy a Poirot blue coffee mug, pour some hot black coffee into it and start reading an Agatha Christie genre. By the time the cold morning breeze snuffs out the lamps of the night, one has finished several cups of coffee and the novel, too. “It was five o’clock on a winter’s morning in Syria,” will linger in one’s mind.
