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Fake Books, Fictional Detectives

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On the Shelf

  • “Would anyone go and ‘consult’ him? One feels not.” In a rediscovered Agatha Christie document, the author admits to a love-hate relationship with her creation, the debonair Belgian detective Poirot, and critiques other mystery writers.
  • The Marquis de Sade wanted even more days of Sodom? Unfinished novels of great writers.
  • “Wanting for some unknown reason to fill a space in his study with a selection of false books—complete with witty names he thought up himself—[Dickens] wrote to a bookbinder with a list of ‘imitation book-backs’ to be created specially for his bookshelf.” Now, the New York Public Library has re-created several of these fake books.
  • And speaking of the NYPL! Thanks to a donation, the library has reconsidered its controversial plan to relocate many of its books.
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