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The Benefits of Adults Reading for Pleasure

A global study explored the emotional, social and psychological benefits to adults of reading for 30 minutes or more per week for pleasure. Regular readers reported a number of benefits including:

  • fewer feelings of stress and depression than non-readers, 

  • stronger feelings of relaxation,

  • higher levels of self-esteem,

  • greater ability to cope with difficult situations,

  • feeling closer to their friends and to their community,

  • greater understanding and empathy with others,

  • stronger and more engaged awareness of social issues and of cultural diversity.

THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD

by Agatha Christie

 

Considered to be one of Agatha Christie's greatest, and also most controversial mysteries, 'The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd' breaks the rules of traditional mystery. 

The peaceful English village of King’s Abbot is stunned. The widow Ferrars dies from an overdose of Veronal. Not twenty-four hours later, Roger Ackroyd—the man she had planned to marry—is murdered. It is a baffling case involving blackmail and death that taxes Hercule Poirot’s “little grey cells” before he reaches one of the most startling conclusions of his career.

Librarian's note: the first fifteen novels in the Hercule Poirot series are 1) The Mysterious Affair at Styles, 1920; 2) The Murder on the Links, 1923; 3) The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, 1926; 4) The Big Four, 1927; 5) The Mystery of the Blue Train, 1928; 6) Peril at End House, 1932; 7) Lord Edgware Dies, 1933; 8) Murder on the Orient Express, 1934; 9) Three Act Tragedy, 1935; 10) Death in the Clouds, 1935; 11) The A.B.C. Murders, 1936; 12) Murder in Mesopotamia, 1936; 13) Cards on the Table, 1936; 14) Dumb Witness, 1937; and 15) Death on the Nile, 1937. These are just the novels; Poirot also appears in this period in a play, Black Coffee, 1930, and two collections of short stories, Poirot Investigates, 1924, and Murder in the Mews, 1937. 

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