Agatha Christie, the CIA, and Reading Welshly: July Books Roundup

Our ongoing look at new books that have recently caught the eye of our print and online editors.

Wonders and Rarities: The Marvelous Book That Traveled the World and Mapped the Cosmos by Travis Zadeh

A study of the influential 13th century encyclopedic natural history Wonders and Rarities by Zakariyyāʾ Qazwīnī (1203--83), a Persian naturalist, geographer and legal expert in Iran and Iraq. From Harvard University Press

Paradise Lost: A Biography by Alan Jacobs
        
The story of John Milton’s epic poem, how it was written, and what people have made of it over the centuries since publication including its influence on novelists such as Philip Pullman as well as other creative works such as comics, paintings, music, and video games. Published by Princeton University Press.

My Year of Reading Welshly by Alex Johnson

Fine Books' online editor Alex Johnson's latest book about books focuses on the lovely country of Cymru as he spends a year reading 52 books (novels, fiction, poetry, travelogue) from Wales, about Wales, and mostly written by Welsh authors over the last century. Favorites such as Under Milk Wood rub shoulders with modern titles such as Manon Steffan Ros’s The Blue Book of Nebo. Published by Calon Press, the new non-fiction imprint of the University of Wales Press.

V is for Venom: Agatha Christie's Chemicals of Death by Kathryn Harkup

An intriguing analysis of the role of poison in Agatha Christie's crime fiction, a companion to Harkup's 2015 book along similar lines A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie, examines the author's chemical knowledge and specifically 14 more poisons from her works, their science, use in actual murder cases, and availability then and now. Featuring hydrochloric acid (Murder in Mesopotamia), procaine (One, Two, Buckle My Shoe), and naturally venom (Death in the Clouds). From Bloomsbury.

Cyanide in the Sun: And Other Stories of Summertime Crime edited by Martin Edwards

If you're on the lookout for some seasonal holiday detective reading, British Library Publishing continues its Crime Classics with a selection of short stories from the 1920s to the 1980s centring on vacations. Among the writers are Christianna Brand, Anthony Berkeley and Celia Fremlin.

By Touch Alone: Blindness and Reading in Nineteenth-Century Culture by Vanessa Warne

A fascinating look by the Professor of English at the University of Manitoba at how reading was made accessible to blind and partially sighted people in the 19th century, and the ways this new form of book culture changed their lives. It includes fiction, essays, letters, and speeches written by blind readers. From University of Michigan Press.

Johannes Gutenberg: A Biography in Books by Eric Marshall White

A biography of the iconic medieval printer from Reaktion Books focusing on his output of schoolbooks, pamphlets, indulgences, broadsides, as well as of course the first printed Bible.

Stalin's Library: A Dictator and his Books by Geoffrey Roberts

If you missed the superb 2022 hardback exploring what Stalin read (lots) and what he learned from them, it is now out in paperback published by Yale University Press.

The CIA Book Club by Charlie English

The story of the Manhattan-based cold war covert covert intelligence operation, the 'CIA book program', utilised the power of reading in a big to scupper Soviet censorship and spread a different cultural awareness by smuggling in huge numbers of books, especially into Poland. Published byRandom House.