Agatha Christie: The Sunday Times Bestseller

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I listened to the audiobook, also narrated by Lucy Worsley, and couldn't have been happier with my choice. In recent years, she has become the subject of a number of books, all based on her 11 day disappearance in 1926. A new, fascinating account of the life of Agatha Christie from celebrated literary and cultural historian Lucy Worsley. Page 299: But apart from the misery of being watched and judged, there was a kind of freedom in not being thin. In “Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman,” Lucy Worsley revisits the weird story of one of the 20th century’s most popular and enduring authors.

But as for reading about her life, Christie’s own fascinating Autobiography is the most interesting book by far. At best synthesizes what others have written about Agatha Christie much more intelligently and much more interestingly.The narrative tails off towards the end and I found myself rushing through the last few chapters but it is overall very informative. It all feels a bit try-hard as if trying to separate this from more sober biographies or assessments of Christie. Of Christie’s first husband, Archibald, whose adultery sparked that 1926 flight, she confides that a photograph of him impressed on her “an essential fact” that she hadn’t hitherto appreciated: “He was incredibly hot. She does, though, try to remake Christie as a modern independent woman, however much Christie was herself pretty reactionary, with little sympathy for suffragette/feminist positions. The second part is Worsley’s explanation of Christie’s breakdown and disappearance after a suicide attempt.

Just a few chapters in and I had an urge to start reading some of the original mysteries with Lucy Worsley having reignited my enthusiasm. Worsley points out that during the timeframe coinciding with sales of Christie's novels in which she wrote about people's homes and their meanings with a "peculiarly homely brand of death", the magazines Good Housekeeping and Woman and Home were launched targeting the new middle class female reader focused on her home.However, the breadth of what Agatha Christie experienced in a lifetime was astonishing to me to see it all displayed. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. He responds (so so perfectly) "Darling, you not only are my favourite size but always will be, expanding or contracting" I immediately thought, Agatha- stop your dithering, how can you not marry this man? Working in her bedroom, in odd corners, she was as unlike the conventional idea of the anguished author as possible.

Novels are plotted across multiple volumes, apparently according to whichever one happened to be to hand. However if you're only even vaguely interested in the author herself you'll still find this book fascinating. Rising to become one of the most successful authors of all time, she was actually quite humble in her life. the book is a model of how to combine biographical information, analysis and literary criticism into a propulsive narrative.And the notebooks also reveal how work for Agatha was threaded right through life: alongside ideas for characters and plots are a list of furniture; a reminder to make a hair appointment; a note of the train time to Torquay. But the book also contains a great deal of padding — perhaps because the terrain has been so thoroughly mapped before — and an unsubtle dose of moralizing. I say this due to their being classified as such "The Westmacotts are definitely uneven in quality, but their reception was also damaged by their female authorship and subject matter: 'somewhat juvenile romantic novels' was one conclusion by a male critic. I will also add that Lucy warns us and I'll second her warning for readers: There are numerous Agatha Christie book plot spoilers throughout the pages in her book .

Worsley offers close readings of Christie's work and presents a careful reframe of the novelist's famous 1926 disappearance.I found this book to be an incredibly well written piece that gave me a terrific introductory education on Agatha Christie. As with any game-player, an author can be accused of not playing fair, and Christie’s finest novels, like “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd,” tiptoe deliciously close to the cheating line without crossing it.