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497+ Works 8,739 Members 50 Reviews

About the Author

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Image credit: The Harper Brothers, circa 1855-1865
(Brady-Handy Photograph Collection,
LoC Prints and Photographs Division,
LC-DIG-cwpbh-02807)

Series

Works by HarperCollins

Marple: Twelve New Stories (2022) — Publisher — 482 copies
Good Night, Baby Donald (1987) 183 copies
Collins French Dictionary (1982) 106 copies
Atlas of the Human Body (1994) 72 copies
The Gay Pillow Book (1995) 42 copies
Collins Pocket World Atlas (1993) 28 copies
My First Book of Animals (2011) 24 copies
Collins Junior Atlas (2014) 24 copies
J.R.R Tolkien (1998) 23 copies
Halliwell's Film Guide 2008 (2007) 20 copies
My First Book of Science (2013) 17 copies
Longman World History Atlas (1996) 13 copies
World Flags (2011) 13 copies
Solar System (2011) 12 copies
Collins German Dictionary (2007) 11 copies
Collins German dictionary (2019) 10 copies
Baa Baa Tom Sheep (2004) 10 copies
My First Dictionary (1997) 9 copies
Card Tricks (Collins GEM) (2002) 9 copies
The Tolkien Diary 1999 (1998) 8 copies
First Names (1996) 7 copies
Collins Pocket Thesaurus (2002) 7 copies
Palmistry (Collins Gem) (2000) 7 copies
Collins Gem Flags (1986) 6 copies
Geography (Collins Gems) (2002) 6 copies
Maths Dictionary (2002) 5 copies
Big Slide (Bing) (2015) 5 copies
World of Animals (1980) 5 copies
Collins My First Book Solar System (2011) — Author — 5 copies
Color and Create Snowflakes, Frost, and Crystals (2015) — Author — 5 copies
Color Your Own Monet and the Impressionists (2016) — Author — 5 copies
Bing Hide and Seek (Bing) (2015) 4 copies
Sweet Sixteen #5: Marisa (2000) 4 copies
Spirits (1999) 4 copies
Mathematics (Collins Gem) (2002) 4 copies
Diy Tips (Collins Gem) (2004) 3 copies
Superscale London Map (1999) 3 copies
Italy - Everyman Guide (1998) 3 copies
Collins Gem English-Hindi (2011) 2 copies
Ireland Visitors Map (1999) 2 copies
Our Baby: A Journal (1994) 2 copies
Dublin Streetfinder Atlas (1999) 2 copies
Thank You (Me to You) (2009) 2 copies
My Awesome Year Being 8 (2020) 2 copies
India in Space (2020) 2 copies
Atlas of the World Atlas (2009) 2 copies
2000 Map of Britain (1999) 2 copies
Colorful London (1984) 2 copies
A Reader's Guide to the God of Small Things (1998) — Publisher — 1 copy
Formula One (2000) 1 copy
Our Wedding: A Journal (1994) 1 copy
Wine 1 copy
Bnight Sky 1 copy
trees 1 copy
Paddington Bear (2008) 1 copy
Darkness at Dawn (1994) 1 copy
SHIFU 1 copy
Holy Bible (2011) 1 copy
New Collins Quiz Book (2000) 1 copy
Canada (2001) 1 copy
Superscale London Map (1998) 1 copy
Xthe Food Files 20 Simple Classics Fre (2012) — Author — 1 copy

Associated Works

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine (2017) — Publisher, some editions — 8,650 copies
The Last Widow (2019) — Publisher, some editions — 1,084 copies
The Slightly Annoying Elephant (2013) — Publisher, some editions — 142 copies

Tagged

2017 (54) 2018 (82) audiobook (79) book club (57) child abuse (134) contemporary (63) contemporary fiction (77) depression (92) dictionaries (174) dictionary (761) ebook (57) English (105) fiction (737) foreign language (81) French (242) French language (59) friendship (155) German (153) Glasgow (89) humor (61) Italian (106) Kindle (66) language (509) languages (188) Latin (77) loneliness (138) mental health (78) mental illness (127) mystery (94) non-fiction (304) novel (68) own (54) Portuguese (55) read (101) read in 2018 (60) reference (891) Scotland (184) Spanish (239) to-read (863) travel (53)

Common Knowledge

Canonical name
HarperCollins
Gender
n/a
Nationality
USA
Short biography
HarperCollins is a broad-based publisher with strengths in literary and commercial fiction, business books, children’s books, cookbooks, and mystery, romance, reference, religious, and spiritual books. Consistently at the forefront of innovation and technological advancement, HarperCollins is the first publisher to digitize its content and create a global digital warehouse to protect the rights of its authors, meet consumer demand, and generate additional business opportunities.
Disambiguation notice
If your book appears on this page, you may wish to edit your information to use the author's name in that field, rather than the publisher's. Your book should then appear on the correct author page. Thank you for your help.

Members

Reviews

Collection of Marple short stories. Great intro to some other authors
½
 
Flagged
littlel | 25 other reviews | Jan 6, 2024 |
I started reading this book because I was in the middle of a career change when the current shitshow hit, and felt the need to brush up and organise my English grammar. Most of the times, I was thinking 'Yeah, I know that'. Some other times I felt 'All right, I was using that the correct way unconsciously and now here comes a rule explaining it and I am starting to feel utterly confused'. I'm not so sure right now that it was a good idea. Anyway.

It is very clearly structured, with (tapable) cross-references, a comprehensive and easy to follow guide to English grammar. However, I found 10 mistakes (missing words, typos, wrong examples - I mean examples for the next rule, not the one discussed, etc). In a reference book like this, it is quite a problem. I reported most of them (didn't remember to do so for the first couple of instances, sorry) through the app (it's a kindle edition). Hopefully, these will be corrected when an update is released.

As it ended with a chapter on punctuation, it helped me to decide which of the two books I was keeping at my bedside to read next. Eats, Shoots & Leaves it is, then.
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Flagged
blueisthenewpink | Jan 3, 2024 |
A set of 12 authors each provided a short Miss Marple story in this anthology. As with any anthology, it is a mixed bag. Some tried a bit to hard to be different, moving Miss Marple to New York, Italy or a boat to Hing King, each of which felt a bit too far fetched to work. Other stuck more closely to home and they fared better. In one instance the voice of the teller was the first person, in this case the vicar finding yet another body in his house. There were a few quite successful ones with MIss Marple in a village location with an old friend each time. The most successful was by Natalie Haynes, and was the one that I was sure I'd read before, it had Miss Marple at Gossington Hall with Dolly & Arthur Bantry, Henry Clithering, Raymond & Joan. The missing jewels were carefully hidden, and I was sure I'd read that hiding place before - and I was right, as it was inspired by a book that the jewel thieves' nephew was reading and I have also read. It was very cleverly done, used a known setting and known characters and a borrowed plot. Simple but effective.
It was interesting that while some of the stories made reference to Miss Marple's youth, none tried to set a story in her younger days, she remains a little old lady in each of these stories. Maybe we can't imagine her any other way.
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Flagged
Helenliz | 25 other reviews | Dec 2, 2023 |
Miss Marple Returns!
Review of the William Morrow paperback & Kindle editions (September 5, 2023) of the William Morrow hardcover original (September 13, 2022).

[45/60 Average = 3.75/5 rounded up to a GR 4]
These 12 new stories by various contemporary authors feature Agatha Christie's amateur senior sleuth Miss Marple back to solve what are otherwise inexplicable mysteries. I was already familiar with more than half of the writers, who are not all otherwise known for mysteries or detective stories. On the whole everyone did a fair to excellent job.

In the kind, warm glow of the fire the marks of old age were flatteringly blurred. Jane Marple was so little changed, in the important details, from her girlhood self. The quick, birdlike manner, the bright, inquisitive eyes, the sense of a quiet, perhaps even formidable intelligence.


My favourites ***** were the ones that had Miss Marple back on her home ground in the village of St. Mary Mead (#2, #5 & #12). #8 was my other favourite, for a very clever plot which included a Caribbean-based amateur sleuth as Miss Marple's partner in crime-solving. Many of the others had Miss Marple travelling to various exotic locations, always funded by her generous nephew Raymond West, which admittedly is still in keeping with the canon (i.e. A Caribbean Mystery).

#10 was a bit of an odd-ball story in that it had Miss Marple visiting with her nephew Raymond West's grand-daughter. I think most would picture Miss Marple in the original stories (1927 to 1976) as a permanent or slowly aging 60 to 80 years old. Jumping an entire 2 generations would seem to add 40 years or so to her age i.e. making her 100 to 120 years old. Or, perhaps like the best of fictional characters, she is simply immortal😊.

1. Evil in Small Places by Lucy Foley. **** Miss Marple visits an old school colleague when the local choir leader is found murdered.

2. The Second Murder at the Vicarage by Val McDermid. ***** A sequel to the 1st Miss Marple novel The Murder at the Vicarage with many of the same characters. McDermid captures the atmosphere of the original very well.

3. Miss Marple Takes Manhattan by Alyssa Cole. *** Miss Marple joins her nephew Raymond West and his wife Joan in a trip to NYC to attend the opening of a theatrical adaptation of his first novel. An apparent death occurs at the theatre dress rehearsal.

4. The Unravelling by Natalie Haynes. **** A man appears on a family doorstep and is later murdered for no apparent reason. I had expected that this one would somehow tie-into Greco-Roman classical myths based on my other readings of Natalie Haynes, but it didn’t. It did however tie-in to a rather famous historical court case from the middle ages 🤐 .

5. Miss Marple’s Christmas by Ruth Ware. ***** Miss Marple spends Christmas with her nephew Raymond and his wife Joan visiting her. They attend Christmas dinner at the Bantrys, along with several others, when a jewelry theft occurs.

6. The Open Mind by Naomi Alderman. *** Miss Marple attends a Founders’ Dinner at St. Bede College when an apparent murder occurs.

7. The Jade Empress by Jean Kwok. *** Miss Marple is on a cruise to Hong Kong on the Jade Empress cruise line when a murder occurs on board the ship.

8. A Deadly Wedding Day by Dreda Say Mitchell. ***** Miss Marple attends a wedding where one of the guests is apparently poisoned. The groom’s parents want to cover up that a death has occurred.

9. Murder at the Villa Rosa by Elly Griffiths. ** Probably the oddest story in the collection. A writer who is apparently planning a murder goes on a vacation to the Villa Rosa where he meets a strange collection of people including Miss Marple. Once the reveal comes it is a bit of a letdown.

10. The Murdering Sort by Karen M. McManus. *** Miss Marple is again on vacation in Cape Cod with her nephew Raymond’s grand-daughter(? This seems like a completely unrealistic jump in generations) Nicola. A friend of Nicola asks Miss Marple to investigate why her family’s patriarch is suspicious of his family trying to murder him.

11. The Mystery of the Acid Soil by Kate Mosse. *** Miss Marple meets a curate on a train and is asked to help find his missing girlfriend.

12. The Disappearance by Leigh Bardugo. ***** Miss Marple is called back from a London trip by her old friend Mrs. Bantry who is living in the Lodge at her old residence Gossington Hall. The scion of the new owners has gone missing with the family jewels. Also, the body of a local girl has been found, a suicide or murder?

I could not properly utilize the Berengaria Ease of Solving Scale® for these mysteries. In short stories the reveal comes along so soon that you really have no time to analyze or ponder the clues. I would thus rate all of these at the high end of the scale as 8s to 10s (i.e. almost impossible to solve by the reader), even if the bad 'un may be somewhat obvious due to Ebert's Law of the Economy of Characters.
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Flagged
alanteder | 25 other reviews | Nov 29, 2023 |

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Statistics

Works
497
Also by
3
Members
8,739
Popularity
#2,738
Rating
4.1
Reviews
50
ISBNs
826
Languages
14

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