Agatha Christie Novels $0.99 (Kobo Canada)

Synamon · 08-20-2014, 12:20 PM

As mentioned in the Kobobooks.com Discount Codes thread, many Agatha Christie novels published by William Morrow (HarperCollins imprint) are available at Kobo Canada for $0.99. Come for a virtual holiday (change your country code to Canada) in the great white north!

Easiest way to find them is to do a search for Agatha Christie, but unfortunately there are also short stories that are regularly priced at $0.99 mixed in. I found that once I put a few of the novels into my cart and then clicked on the cart I could easily add more of the novels which then appeared in the recommended 'other titles to add' list on the page.

I've been reading what I could find at my library, but wanted my own copies so I bought 68 books this morning. Now off to download them and put them into calibre.

ATDrake · 08-20-2014, 01:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Synamon

Easiest way to find them is to do a search for Agatha Christie, but unfortunately there are also short stories that are regularly priced at $0.99 mixed in.

Perhaps one could use a mix of Wikipedia's Agatha Christie bibliographies for novels/collections & shorts and the HarperCollins Canada site search for all their works by her to filter and cross-check?

(ETA: Kobo auto-search for "Agatha Christie" AND "HarperCollins", sorted low-to-high nets you the most eligible titles. Just keep clicking "Show More Results" until you run into the ones above 99 cents. It's pretty easy to pick out the novels amongst the shorts, at least the way the page shows for me, since they all have generic variant covers and "A Short Story" visible on either the cover or in the title blurb below.

ETA 2: Ooh, there's her autobiography. Apparently she had an interesting life. Don't know if she talks about the interesting bits much, though.

ETA 3: Darn, the archaeological memoir is not one of the ones on sale.

)

Thanks for the tip, BTW. I've been meaning to support Kobo with more of my business and 99 cents + tax per Christie is a good enough price that even though I'm not much of a reader of hers, I'm willing to splurge on the ones the library doesn't already have (or that I really, really liked, though I can't think of one off the top of my head).

sufue · 08-20-2014, 02:02 PM

I did a very similar thing as AT Drake suggests.

I used the Stop You're Killing Me website, and just checked through the website's bibliography for Agatha Christie book by book, looking first to see if I already had each one - clearly I don't have perfect control of my collection of ebooks! I then just searched the Kobo site for the few I still needed. That worked pretty well since I already had a lot, and saved having to page through the huge numbers of individual short stories that pop up, as others have noted, if you just search on Agatha Christie and the sort by price.

One note of caution - a few of the books I needed were short story ***collections***, and in many cases the title of the book is "The Lead Story and Other Stories" and there is also then an individual version of just "The Lead Story" available. So in that case, you need to be careful to pick up the book version which is the collection, rather than just the individual story, since right now they are both 99 cents in Canada.

Synamon · 08-20-2014, 02:16 PM

I did my cross checking via the Agatha Christie list at fantastic fiction since I originally planned to only get the Poirots, but after a bit I gave in and half-hazardly added standalones and some Miss Marple. Still, I probably missed some, if I have time later I'll check out the HarperCollins list (thanks for the tip).

It wasn't too hard to avoid the short stories, they all seemed to have 'Short Story' right on the cover. Once I'd put some novels in my cart, the recommendations that show on the cart page seemed to skip over the short stories, which allowed me to add only the novels easily.

Downloading them all was tedious! I'll save tagging and ordering them properly in calibre for another day.

ATDrake · 08-20-2014, 02:35 PM

For anyone who's morbidly curious, going through all the titles supplied by the Kobo auto-search link I posted upthread, and adding all the 99 cent ones without the "A Short Story" cover design (and excluding the Intro to Christie promo essays which used to be a freebie) yielded a grand total of 79 titles in the test cart. (ETA 2: 88 on the recount, though my math may be off by one since the Kobo cart says 87. But then it also increments when I test-add stuff it suggests from the sidebar which I know I already picked up.)

(ETA: it may also be useful to sift through an "Agatha Christie" + "William Morrow" search, as that yielded a few more titles I hadn't previously added to cart during the first round, and which didn't seem to show up on the full results from the first search.)

This includes all the short story collections, the plays, the Poirot that was marked "completed as a novel by X", the autobiography, the travelogue, and the two novels which are public domain in the US, and "Murder at the Vicarage", which was an official multi-store freebie several years ago.

Unfortunately, there's no easy way to copy paste from the contents of my cart without logging in and going to the checkout screen, which I'm not going to do because paranoid filtering before I buy, and I also want to login to my Great Canadian Rebates account before purchasing so that I can get some cashback.

jersysman · 08-20-2014, 02:51 PM

Thanks, Synamon. I took the trip and picked up a few.

Byrdie · 08-20-2014, 04:14 PM

Thanks for the heads up, off to grab me some Poirot. Found the Complete Short Stories, also The Labors Of Hercules. Does anybody know if the Complete book includes the Labors or do I need both?

ATDrake · 08-20-2014, 04:25 PM

^
Comparing the TOC listings on the online reading samples at the B&N website, the Complete Poirot contains all the same story titles from Labours, and it looks like the introductory Foreword story has been incorporated as #38 in the Complete.

Thanks for asking. Looks like I can prune my list down a bit and save 99 cents.

DrNefario · 08-20-2014, 04:29 PM

It includes the Labours of Hercules if it's the same one I have. If it mentions 50+ stories then it pretty much needs them to make the numbers.

Byrdie · 08-20-2014, 04:32 PM

Thanks again, will go edit my cart as that makes room for more. :-)

ATDrake · 08-20-2014, 04:34 PM

Murder in the Mews can also be deleted from the cart. All 4 novellas from that are also in the Complete Poirot and there doesn't seem to be any special introductory material.

ETA: Also Poirot Investigates can be eliminated, and The Underdog and Other Stories (unless you really want that original version of The Submarine Plan which Wikipedia says was rewritten into the included The Incredible Theft).

ETA 2: The following story collections can be skipped if you only want Marple/Poirot shorts and you're not a completionist/have no interest in her supernatural stuff:

Regatta Mystery &: A Glass Darkly is the only unique story. All others are Marple, Poirot, or Pyne and covered by the Complete Stories and the Pyne collection.

Three Blind Mice &: the title story is the only unique one (and apparently never printed in the UK, according to Wikipedia). All others are Marple or Poirot in the Completes.

Double Sin &: 2 unique stories, which are both supernatural. All others are M/P.

Star Over Bethlehem &: religious-themed stories and poetry, if you're not interested in such.

Byrdie · 08-20-2014, 05:13 PM

Do they have the Complete Miss Marple short stories too, I wonder. Last time I saw that it was around $6 or $7, would be nice to get it on sale. Or perhaps there's a coupon?

ATDrake · 08-20-2014, 05:21 PM

Complete Miss Marple is still $6.99 in Canada. And HarperCollins books aren't couponable, unfortunately.

Byrdie · 08-20-2014, 05:31 PM

Oh, well.

ATDrake · 08-20-2014, 08:16 PM

Okay, this is too cool not to post.

If you're trying to determine if you'd like to try Christie's non-Marple/Poirot short stories or the standalone novels, there's a widget on the bibliography of her official website which does something really nifty.

If you click the Filter button, some dropdowns pop up and you can select by, among other things, Location and Murder Method*.

So if you have this secret fetish for reading whodunnits involving in-house stranglings, well, you're in luck, because there are 13 of them† to choose from.

It turns out there's a Mr. Quin story set in Canada. I have to get that collection, now.

(ETA: It turns out they've also a handy reading downloadable list for Christie in general, plus Poirot and Marple in specific, with suggested reading order to avoid spoilers for earlier books in later ones, and which you can use to check against the HC sale.)

* Mr. Green, in the hall, with the revolver.

† This method of story-selection may contain inadvertent spoilers. Viewer discretion is advised.

08-20-2014, 12:20 PM	#1
Synamon Lunatic Posts: 1,691 Karma: 4386372 Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: Land of the Loonie Device: Kindle Paperwhite and Keyboard, Kobo Aura, iPad mini, iPod Touch	Agatha Christie Novels $0.99 (Kobo Canada) As mentioned in the Kobobooks.com Discount Codes thread, many Agatha Christie novels published by William Morrow (HarperCollins imprint) are available at Kobo Canada for $0.99. Come for a virtual holiday (change your country code to Canada) in the great white north! Easiest way to find them is to do a search for Agatha Christie, but unfortunately there are also short stories that are regularly priced at $0.99 mixed in. I found that once I put a few of the novels into my cart and then clicked on the cart I could easily add more of the novels which then appeared in the recommended 'other titles to add' list on the page. I've been reading what I could find at my library, but wanted my own copies so I bought 68 books this morning. Now off to download them and put them into calibre.

08-20-2014, 02:35 PM	#5
ATDrake Wizzard Posts: 11,517 Karma: 33048258 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Roundworld Device: Kindle 2 International, Sony PRS-T1, BlackBerry PlayBook, Acer Iconia	For anyone who's morbidly curious, going through all the titles supplied by the Kobo auto-search link I posted upthread, and adding all the 99 cent ones without the "A Short Story" cover design (and excluding the Intro to Christie promo essays which used to be a freebie) yielded a grand total of 79 titles in the test cart. (ETA 2: 88 on the recount, though my math may be off by one since the Kobo cart says 87. But then it also increments when I test-add stuff it suggests from the sidebar which I know I already picked up.) (ETA: it may also be useful to sift through an "Agatha Christie" + "William Morrow" search, as that yielded a few more titles I hadn't previously added to cart during the first round, and which didn't seem to show up on the full results from the first search.) This includes all the short story collections, the plays, the Poirot that was marked "completed as a novel by X", the autobiography, the travelogue, and the two novels which are public domain in the US, and "Murder at the Vicarage", which was an official multi-store freebie several years ago. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to copy paste from the contents of my cart without logging in and going to the checkout screen, which I'm not going to do because paranoid filtering before I buy, and I also want to login to my Great Canadian Rebates account before purchasing so that I can get some cashback. Last edited by ATDrake; 08-20-2014 at 03:17 PM. Reason: Turns out we already got one previously for free.

08-20-2014, 04:34 PM	#11
ATDrake Wizzard Posts: 11,517 Karma: 33048258 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Roundworld Device: Kindle 2 International, Sony PRS-T1, BlackBerry PlayBook, Acer Iconia	Murder in the Mews can also be deleted from the cart. All 4 novellas from that are also in the Complete Poirot and there doesn't seem to be any special introductory material. ETA: Also Poirot Investigates can be eliminated, and The Underdog and Other Stories (unless you really want that original version of The Submarine Plan which Wikipedia says was rewritten into the included The Incredible Theft). ETA 2: The following story collections can be skipped if you only want Marple/Poirot shorts and you're not a completionist/have no interest in her supernatural stuff: Regatta Mystery &: A Glass Darkly is the only unique story. All others are Marple, Poirot, or Pyne and covered by the Complete Stories and the Pyne collection. Three Blind Mice &: the title story is the only unique one (and apparently never printed in the UK, according to Wikipedia). All others are Marple or Poirot in the Completes. Double Sin &: 2 unique stories, which are both supernatural. All others are M/P. Star Over Bethlehem &: religious-themed stories and poetry, if you're not interested in such. Last edited by ATDrake; 08-20-2014 at 07:58 PM. Reason: On the other hand, you'd pay 99 cents for the same shorts off sale so if you think you ever might, you might as well.

08-20-2014, 08:16 PM	#15
ATDrake Wizzard Posts: 11,517 Karma: 33048258 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Roundworld Device: Kindle 2 International, Sony PRS-T1, BlackBerry PlayBook, Acer Iconia	Okay, this is too cool not to post. If you're trying to determine if you'd like to try Christie's non-Marple/Poirot short stories or the standalone novels, there's a widget on the bibliography of her official website which does something really nifty. If you click the Filter button, some dropdowns pop up and you can select by, among other things, Location and Murder Method. So if you have this secret fetish for reading whodunnits involving in-house stranglings, well, you're in luck, because there are 13 of them† to choose from. It turns out there's a Mr. Quin story set in Canada. I have to get that collection, now. (ETA: It turns out they've also a handy reading downloadable list for Christie in general, plus Poirot and Marple in specific, with suggested reading order to avoid spoilers for earlier books in later ones, and which you can use to check against the HC sale.) Mr. Green, in the hall, with the revolver. † This method of story-selection may contain inadvertent spoilers. Viewer discretion is advised. Last edited by ATDrake; 08-20-2014 at 09:25 PM. Reason: It turns out there aren't any strangling tales set in London because I set the dropdown wrong. But there are still lots.

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08-20-2014, 02:02 PM	#3
sufue lost in my e-reader... Posts: 8,130 Karma: 64613820 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: sunny southern California, USA Device: Android phone, Sony T1, Nook ST Glowlight, Galaxy Tab 7 Plus	I did a very similar thing as AT Drake suggests. I used the Stop You're Killing Me website, and just checked through the website's bibliography for Agatha Christie book by book, looking first to see if I already had each one - clearly I don't have perfect control of my collection of ebooks! I then just searched the Kobo site for the few I still needed. That worked pretty well since I already had a lot, and saved having to page through the huge numbers of individual short stories that pop up, as others have noted, if you just search on Agatha Christie and the sort by price. One note of caution - a few of the books I needed were short story *collections, and in many cases the title of the book is "The Lead Story and Other Stories" and there is also then an individual version of just "The Lead Story" available. So in that case, you need to be careful to pick up the book version which is the collection, rather than just the individual story, since right now they are both 99 cents in Canada. Last edited by sufue; 08-20-2014 at 02:05 PM.*

08-20-2014, 02:16 PM	#4
Synamon Lunatic Posts: 1,691 Karma: 4386372 Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: Land of the Loonie Device: Kindle Paperwhite and Keyboard, Kobo Aura, iPad mini, iPod Touch	I did my cross checking via the Agatha Christie list at fantastic fiction since I originally planned to only get the Poirots, but after a bit I gave in and half-hazardly added standalones and some Miss Marple. Still, I probably missed some, if I have time later I'll check out the HarperCollins list (thanks for the tip). It wasn't too hard to avoid the short stories, they all seemed to have 'Short Story' right on the cover. Once I'd put some novels in my cart, the recommendations that show on the cart page seemed to skip over the short stories, which allowed me to add only the novels easily. Downloading them all was tedious! I'll save tagging and ordering them properly in calibre for another day.

08-20-2014, 02:51 PM	#6
jersysman Wizard Posts: 1,747 Karma: 3761220 Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Pennsylvania Device: T1 Red, Kindle Fire, Kindle PW, PW2, Nook HD+, Kobo Mini, Aura HD	Thanks, Synamon. I took the trip and picked up a few.

08-20-2014, 04:14 PM	#7
Byrdie Walking Library Posts: 253 Karma: 3869938 Join Date: Sep 2012 Location: Canada Device: Kobo Libra H20, Kindle Paperwhite 5, 16 gb version	Thanks for the heads up, off to grab me some Poirot. Found the Complete Short Stories, also The Labors Of Hercules. Does anybody know if the Complete book includes the Labors or do I need both?

08-20-2014, 04:25 PM	#8
ATDrake Wizzard Posts: 11,517 Karma: 33048258 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Roundworld Device: Kindle 2 International, Sony PRS-T1, BlackBerry PlayBook, Acer Iconia	^ Comparing the TOC listings on the online reading samples at the B&N website, the Complete Poirot contains all the same story titles from Labours, and it looks like the introductory Foreword story has been incorporated as #38 in the Complete. Thanks for asking. Looks like I can prune my list down a bit and save 99 cents.

08-20-2014, 04:29 PM	#9
DrNefario Wizard Posts: 2,203 Karma: 12029046 Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: UK Device: Kindle, Kobo Touch, Nook SimpleTouch	It includes the Labours of Hercules if it's the same one I have. If it mentions 50+ stories then it pretty much needs them to make the numbers.

08-20-2014, 04:32 PM	#10
Byrdie Walking Library Posts: 253 Karma: 3869938 Join Date: Sep 2012 Location: Canada Device: Kobo Libra H20, Kindle Paperwhite 5, 16 gb version	Thanks again, will go edit my cart as that makes room for more. :-)

08-20-2014, 05:13 PM	#12
Byrdie Walking Library Posts: 253 Karma: 3869938 Join Date: Sep 2012 Location: Canada Device: Kobo Libra H20, Kindle Paperwhite 5, 16 gb version	Do they have the Complete Miss Marple short stories too, I wonder. Last time I saw that it was around $6 or $7, would be nice to get it on sale. Or perhaps there's a coupon?

08-20-2014, 05:21 PM	#13
ATDrake Wizzard Posts: 11,517 Karma: 33048258 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Roundworld Device: Kindle 2 International, Sony PRS-T1, BlackBerry PlayBook, Acer Iconia	Complete Miss Marple is still $6.99 in Canada. And HarperCollins books aren't couponable, unfortunately.

08-20-2014, 05:31 PM	#14
Byrdie Walking Library Posts: 253 Karma: 3869938 Join Date: Sep 2012 Location: Canada Device: Kobo Libra H20, Kindle Paperwhite 5, 16 gb version	Oh, well.

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