There were approximately 250 murders in my house last year.

No, I didn’t buy the “Amityville Horror” or “Conjuring” homes; the carnage was all of the printed variety, the result of an “extreme reading” project I took on.

During an 11-month span, I read all 78 Agatha Christie mystery novels and short-story collections, and — figuring there were two or three murders per novel and a bunch more in the short-story collections — my guess is that I stood idly by while about 250 fictitious people were stabbed, poisoned, bludgeoned or, in one case, thrown from a horse with murderous intent. And I loved it.

I had read the Christie mysteries a long time ago, when I was in junior high and my grandma introduced me to them. I wasn’t then and am not now a big mystery fan, but something about Christie’s mysteries, which combine her endless inventiveness with a reassuring familiarity — yep, someone’s going to get bloodlessly killed in every book, and usually, either Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple will figure out whodunit — has always worked for me. I loved rediscovering the books, which had been stored in an unopened box for decades, particularly since I only remembered the culprits in a few of them.

But I also found something new: A portrait emerges of what it was like to live in England from about 1920 to 1970, one that becomes especially evident when you read the books in order, proceeding from the grim aftermath of World War I to the swinging London of the 1960s.

Christie is also a much funnier writer than I remembered — or, as a pre-teenager, probably even understood. Her restraint and wit are evident in all of the books, particularly in the ones that feature Poirot buddy Ariadne Oliver, a scatterbrained, bulldozing, apple-eating mystery writer who can’t stand the detective she created and who is quite clearly modeled on Christie herself.

Since I completed my little project — which you can follow from start to finish at chrisandchristie.tumblr.com — I’ve become aware that similar “extreme reading” projects are a thing these days. I’ve read a really good book (“The Shelf,” by Phyllis Rose) and a not-very-good one (“The Year of Reading Dangerously,” by Andy Miller) by people who undertook long-term reading projects. And I learned that, like me, both of them not only found what they were looking for in their projects but also stumbled upon plenty that they did not expect to find.

It was sheer coincidence that I finished just a couple of months before the 125th birthday of the Queen of Crime (she was born Sept. 13, 1890, and died in 1976), but that should do its bit to goose Christie’s sales, which are at 2 billion and rising. So should a new British TV series about her characters, Tuppence and Tommy, and a Kenneth Branagh-directed remake of “Murder on the Orient Express” that is currently in the casting stage.

Even if you’re not into Christie, I would endorse embarking on some sort of reading project: All six Shirley Jackson novels would be manageable, for instance, or tackling the 13 Lemony Snicket books would be only slightly more extreme. Or you could find a subject that interests you and read every book you can find on it — Bonobos? Disney movies? Pierogies?

If you do decide you’d like a more modest dip into the Agatha Christie pond, at chrisandchristie.tumblr.com, I ranked all of her books from best to worst, and my top 10 would be a great place to start.

MY TOP 10

1. “The ABC Murders” (1936): Christie got to a lot of shocking twists before any other writer did (the one where the narrator did it, the one where everyone did it, the one where a kid did it, the one where the key witness did it, etc.), but this mystery, featuring fussy Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, may be the writer’s craftiest feat of legerdemain. She lets you think you know what’s going on the whole time, but you don’t.

2. “Murder on the Orient Express” (1934): The book tends to get overshadowed by the all-star movie and TV versions, but even if you already know everything that happens based on viewing them, “Orient Express” is worth reading because it’s so swift and absorbing. And that 1975 Oscar that Ingrid Bergman won for playing the hilariously pious missionary? Every single thing she did came straight from the book.

3. “A Murder Is Announced” (1950): Not only is it an extremely clever solution, with a feisty appearance by Christie’s elderly Miss Marple, but it’s an intriguing portrait of English village life, where, years after the end of World War II, rationing means they still have to beg for the ingredients to make a cake. It’s also Christie’s most moving book, with a killer who very much regrets having to kill, and it features a discreet and surprisingly early thumbs up to same-sex relationships.

4. “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” (1926): Maybe the best twist in all of detective fiction, although there might be some disagreement from essayist Edmund Wilson, who titled his denunciation of mysteries, “Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?” But, in just her sixth book, “Ackroyd” also demonstrates Christie’s gift for creating vivid supporting characters, and it contains the best final line in any of her books.

5. “Evil Under the Sun” (1941): Another Christie mystery that was turned into a fine movie (because of Maggie Smith, as the irritable proprietress of a hotel where murder checks in), “Evil” finds Christie, whose father was American, having a little fun with the stereotype of the ugly American, and gleefully unspooling one of her it-couldn’t-have-happened-that-way-but-it-did puzzles.

6. “Murder at the Vicarage” (1930): I like it because it feels like Christie is trying to get her bearings after a series of tragedies (the death of her beloved mom, getting dumped by her husband and touching off an international sensation when she disappeared for a week after being dumped — a disappearance that, by the way, has never been explained). It’s also the first novel with the incredibly original character of Miss Marple, who is constantly underestimated because she has never left her tiny village but who finds parallels for all of the world’s evils there.

7. “The Moving Finger” (1942): Unlike any other Christie novel in that its murders feel extremely personal and real, this Miss Marple mystery calls on the paranoia of England’s precarious position in World War II to focus on a village where anonymous, poison-pen letters lead to murder. I like to think lots of artists read this portrait of toxic, small-town life and were inspired by it, including David Lynch (“Blue Velvet’) and Henri-Georges Clouzot (whose masterful “Le Corbeau” came out the next year and featured a nearly identical plot).

8. “Cards on the Table” (1936): If you’re paying attention to these dates, you may have noticed how consistently Christie knocked it out of the park in the 1930s. This one is a playful, maybe even post-modern, mystery about a murder that takes place during a game of bridge. A Hercule Poirot mystery, it’s structured like a game of bridge and it features a witty appearance by the always-delightful Ariadne Oliver.

9. “Mrs. McGinty’s Dead” (1952): Did you know Christie was one of Truman Capote’s favorite writers? I’m inclined to think his appreciation of the banal, small-town murder in this tricky novel helped him decide to tackle his own project about a banal, small-town murder a decade later, “In Cold Blood.” Unlike that book, though, “Mrs. McGinty’s Dead” is hilarious. In fact, it’s Christie’s funniest book, with another appearance by Oliver, who ensnares Poirot in a thorny mystery and who makes fun of the fussbudget detective’s plight: He’s forced to stay in a shabby, dusty guesthouse with terrible food and worse hygiene.

10. “Ten Little Indians (And Then There Were None)” (1939): Yet another one from Christie’s golden ’30s, it is her most famous and most imitated book for good reason: As the characters on a remote island get bumped off one by one, the tension becomes unbearable. (Despite the pile of bodies Christie left in her wake, this is probably the only one of her books that could be described as “scary.”)

Chris Hewitt can be reached at 651-228-5552 or follow him on twitter.com/ChrisHMovie.