I promise I do study...A LOT

     I know what you've been thinking...how can she possibly be doing all of these fun things and still be on a school trip? Our classes are everyday and bright and early in the morning. I get out of class everyday at 11:05 so I have the rest of the day to walk around Oxford, go to London, and most importantly-study. The classes that are offered for this trip are really fun, dynamic, and interesting. My classes are the History of Pop Music from the Beatles to Punk Rock and Detective Fiction. Super interesting! Other classes include Shakespeare, British Intelligence, Arts of Oxford, and British Literature. I think mine are the best....but opinions, opinions.
     My history class is lecture style intermixed with lots of music! My professor loves to play examples of the music he is talking about, and it makes the class engaging. We had our midterm yesterday, and it went quite well! My english class is a lot of reading and discussion. we've been averaging a book every day or or so. Yes-that's right-a book a day. Luckily, the books are really interesting and enjoyable. You could almost call them "beach reads" because they are so engaging. I have really enjoyed going deeper than the cursory read I would have given them outside of class.
      I thought I would share some of my favorite books that we've read so far. Just so you can get an idea of what I've been doing, and maybe find a book that seems interesting to you! This also helps me review what I've read so far!

     We had to have "The Moonstone" read before the first day of class because it was the biggest book assigned. I read most of it before I left, but I had to finish it on the airplane. I got lost in the story! The moonstone is a valuable stone from India that is brought over to England. The novel is compiled of 5 different accounts of the events leading up to the theft of the moonstone and the events leading up to the solving of the crime. It definitely has some twists and turns that I didn't see coming. One of the special things about this novel is that it is seen as the first detective fiction novel!

     Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story that chronicles the investigation of the murder of two women, a mother and daughter, inside a locked house. There is a detective similar to Holmes in there that is able to think tangentially to figure out who, or what, killed the women. It's a quick read with a very surprising ending!

     "A Study in Scarlet" is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes novel. It not only deals with the murder of two Americans, but introduces Holmes and Watson to each other and to us. The first part of the story deals with the murders and the second part tells a back story that explains the motivation of the killer! Hint-Mormons are involved. I really loved this story.

     I never thought that I would be an Agatha Christie fan, but I loved "The ABC Murders!" It follows Hercule Poirot as he hunts down what seems to be a serial killer. The killer seems to be fascinated with following the alphabet to commit crimes. The first murder is of a woman whose first and last name start with "A" in a town that starts with "A" and so on. The murders continue in this fashion down the alphabet until the final revelations. Things are not always as they seem! This turned into a really interesting discussion of the development of the idea of a serial killer as a recent thing. I think that might have been my favorite few days of discussion.

     "The Innocence of Father Brown" is a collection of short stories that focuses on Father Brown as the witty priest who solves crimes. We read 4 of the short stories, and each of them were very different! Now that I have the whole collection, I will be going back and reading the rest of them. I really loved them because they feature the crime solver as someone very different from the typical detective!

     "The Moving Toyshop" was really interesting for several reasons. The first is because it is set in Oxford, so it was fun to read about places that I am familiar with now. The second reason is because of the set-up of the crime. The main character, Cadogan, stumbles across a dead body while in a closed toyshop. When he takes the police to the location of the toyshop the next morning, the shop is now a grocery and there is no dead body. It was really fun and light-hearted while still dealing with murder. I loved the galavanting about Oxford.

     James Cain's "Double Indemnity" might be my favorite book that I've read so far. It is the first "hard-boiled" detective book that we've read so far. The story is about an insurance agent, Huff, that gets caught up with a woman and helps her murder her husband for the insurance money. It was different from the rest of the books because the protagonist was the killer. I read this one in a few hours because I really couldn't put it down! 

     We still have a few books left to read so I will update y'all on how I like them! I hope that at least one of these is interesting to someone!